Phew, International Volunteer Day is done and dusted!

Phew – International Volunteer Day is done and dusted. It was great fun, a real showcase for Mongolia’s volunteer community. As an outsider looking in, I was really impressed with what Mongolia’s volunteers are doing. As International Volunteer Day was a couple of days after my last blog entry, there are a few more events for me to report on…

Ceremony for Chingeltei District’s Health Volunteers – A local health department had trained 19 volunteers to provide health education and basic treatment to the public. On Wednesday it was time to officially unveil the volunteers, so a ceremony was put on to celebrate their achievement. It was very touching to see the volunteers collect their ‘graduation’ certificates. They were all so humble. A really nice touch was that each volunteer was individually introduced to the audience, complete with a list of their likes and dislikes. “This is Bold, 44 years old, who likes going to the movies and eating buuz”! I think this volunteer scheme is a great idea, as the health volunteers free up the overworked doctors, allowing them to work in other areas.

The Grand Finale, a Cocktail Party - on the evening of the 5th many of Mongolia's volunteer community (both staff at volunteering organisations and the volunteers themselves) got together for a celebratory drinks party. However, due to funding difficulties the cocktails were sadly absent! We did however manage to get the head of Mongolia's UN Development Programme to come to speak to us. She delivered the UN Secretary General's message for the volunteering community (everyone listened very attentively). The evening was a success in so much as everyone had a good time, but I hope next year the International Volunteer Day team decide to run a different event (it just seemed a bit of a waste of money, when some of the organisations present would have probably prefered moeny for new office equipment rather than a nice evening of wining and dining).

Amnesty International's supermarket petition - the 10th of December is International Human Rights Day (the UN calendar is crazy, it seems to bunch everything together in December!). To mark this day, Amnesty International's volunteers went out into Ulaanbaatar to do a big petition-signing/fundraising drive. 30 volunteers were sent to 9 of the city's biggest supermarkets and set up stalls. I went along to our local Nomin Supermarket to help out (it was my job to get any foreigners who passed by to sign the petition). I really enjoyed getting back to running a campaign stall, it reminded me of the type of things I used to do when I was at university. Aside from just being there to help out the very kind volunteers, my main highlight was an exchange that I had from a member of the Russian Embassy staff who just happened to be passing through. She was very pleasant, but found it really strange that I would be bothering to campaign about human rights... On a side point, it seems that the only foreigners left in Ulaanbaatar at the moment either work as volunteers, embassy staff or in the mining companies. As temperatures are now averaging -15C a day, tourists are nowhere to be seen!

I hope all of your Christmas preparations are going well. Lots of love from Mongolia,

Robert