On Tour with Amnesty International Mongolia

This week I went back to one of my favourite pastimes – training young people to be campaigners! Amnesty International Mongolia very kindly invited me along to help them with some training they were doing in two schools in Mongolia, and I couldn’t refuse – I was active as a student with Amnesty back in the UK, and so was exited by the opportunity to help a similar Amnesty youth programme spread in Mongolia. Thus, I packed my bags and headed out with Otgo, Samboo and Gerlee for what proved to be an interesting experience…

We went to visit schools in second and third biggest cities in Mongolia, Erdenet and Darkhan (both to the north of Ulaanbaatar). The plan was to go to two schools and give a select group of the children training on volunteerism and campaigning. It was hoped that this training would lead to the creation of self-sustaining school campaigning groups (groups of children who would be running Amnesty campaigns in the local community). The training would give the young people the skills they would need to run a campaigning group effectively, and built up to one final activity – the youth would go out on the streets and do a campaign for real!

Erdenet – the first group we worked with, and as it turned out, the best. This was a fantastic group of young people who were a real pleasure to be with. The young people were really friendly and welcoming, and were very attentive during their training. They were very enthusiastic as well! One of the groups ran a campaign designed to get shopkeepers to stop selling alcohol to children (much to the displeasure of some shopkeepers!), whilst another group did a campaign about the global arms trade. My Amnesty colleagues and I left Erdenet with mixed emotions – we were sad to say goodbye to a group of really nice young people, but we believed that we had been successful – they should continue campaigning into the future. More generally speaking, Erdenet was a lovely place. Perhaps I was swayed by the blanket of white snow that was covering everything, but it just seemed such a nice, friendly city.

Darkhan – so far so good, but the group at Darkhan was more difficult! The children we ran a training for were from one of Mongolia’s top private schools, and the difference between them and the Erdenet state-school educated youth was instantly visible. Here follows a rant, for which I apologise in advance…

The children’s initial reaction was to be critical of the message we had to bring, and would always have excuses ready as to why they shouldn’t be helping the community out. We regularly encountered statements like “people who are poor are lazy, they can’t be helped”. Also, I was shocked at how rude and arrogant some of the children were. One example was when one young man spilt tea all over the floor and yet did not clean it up. When I (the white foreigner) went to clean it up he said I shouldn’t as it would bring shame to him and his class. Instead I should wait for the cleaner to come and sort it out…

I suppose it’s things like this that really stuck with me, but I shouldn’t let it cloud over the positives from the Darkhan training. The youth did some good campaigns (after a lot of persuasion), and the local media came to do a story on how young people were doing work for the local community. Thus, Amnesty/volunteerism in general got some coverage, which can only be a good thing.

Now I’m back in the big city of Ulaanbaatar. Otgo and I both said it was sad to end our adventure and return to our computer screens in our offices, but I can’t do training all the time I suppose!

November the 9th - Network Meeting Extraordinaire

The culmination of the hard work of the last few weeks occurred on the 9th of November. It was on that date that my colleagues and I hosted a large meeting for the members of the Mongolian Volunteer Network (the organisation that I work for). The aim of the meeting was to get the many member organisations together, and to encourage them to share their skills/experience with each other and create a plan for the future. With these aims in mind I think the meeting was a relative success. The first half of the day was filled with networking and skill-sharing events. Then the afternoon session contained discussions on the structure for the network (it's voting procedures, etc) and proposals for a plan for 2008.

Over 40 participants from 23 organisations came, which was a great turnout. We even managed to get the network meeting publicised in the local media, and a camera crew from TV 25 showed up to take some footage and do some interviews. We made the evening news! Whilst the event was fun, now the real work starts - I've got to get down and think about how DEMO (an NGO, and the current host of the network) and I can implement the suggestions that were made during the meeting.

Having said that, my mind is currently on other things. I've just finished the first day of a four day training event that Amnesty International Mongolia and I are running for two regional schools. Today was the turn of Erdenet Secondary, and on Wednesday we'll be heading off to Darkhan (one of my favourite places in Mongolia - see http://rob-in-mongolia.blogspot.com/2007/09/ive-properly-starting-to-settle-in-ive.html). So far it's be good fun (the participants are 14/15 years old, so full of energy!). As someone who was quite active with Amnesty international back in the UK, it's a real privilege to be able to help out the organisation in Mongolia. Anyway, I'll update you all about how the training went in the next weblog entry... Lots of love from an internet cafe in a very snowy Erdenet,

Robert

# Welcome to the House of Fun #

On Friday our house was transformed for a day into a house of fear, trepidation and toilet paper hanging from the ceiling. Yes, that’s right – we had a Hallowe'en Party! Jon, Jude and I invited our colleagues and friends along to our house party. Little did we know that almost everyone accepted our invitations… 40 Mongolians turned up. This made for a pretty good party! The Mongolians had never experienced a Hallowe'en party before (having only heard about them through American films/sitcoms). They were all pretty intrigued. They also loved the idea of having a house party. As many Mongolians still live in gers (tent houses), or live with their families, house parties are pretty tricky to organise. We all had a good time, and the house is still in one piece!

Preparing for Network Meeting – The work I’ve been doing for the last few weeks is close to its fruition. This coming Friday the 9th of November I’ll be helping to host an important meeting for the National Volunteer Network. The meeting will allow the 21 different member organisations to get to know each other better and share their skills. It will also contain two discussions. We’ll be looking at how to change the procedures of the network (the voting process, the amount of time one organisation can host the network, whether there is a need for a presidential figure), and will be planning the network’s 2008 strategy. We’ve encouraged some of the local press to come to cover the event, so if many turn up we’ll be raising the profile of volunteerism in Mongolia. I’ve managed to get the English language press to turn up too (The Mongol Messenger and the UB Post). Any articles they write may prove useful for future fundraising proposals. The attached photo has little to do with the meeting, besides from the fact that it's a view from the conference centre where the meeting will take place. Enjoy!

The COLD – yep, it’s starting to get pretty cold here in Ulaanbaatar. Last week’s average was -7C, and I’ve been told it’s just the start. By January the average will be -25C, and will sometimes hit -35C! The result of this cold is that many of Ulaanbaatar’s street children end up sleeping in the sewers. The children go to sleep next to the heating pipes that run underground. Whilst I’ve read about this problem, it was pretty shocking to see this first-hand, and actually see young people climb in and out of the manholes in the streets. I feel very lucky to have my warm room to return to everyday.

That’s me signing off for another week. Warm wishes from a cold Mongolia,

Robert

Adventures in the Gobi

I’ll get straight to the main highlight of the week – my three-day trip to the Gobi Desert! I was lucky enough to be taken to the Dornogobi (Eastern Gobi) region. One of the members of the network that I work for, the Mongolian Youth Federation, was doing a trip to see some of their countryside-based volunteers. They very kindly invited me along for the ride, so I couldn’t refuse…

Sleeper-train from Ulaanbaatar to Sainsand – Dornogobi is a good 1000 km from Ulaanbaatar, so we took an over-night train. Whilst it was a 10-hour journey, the time flew. My collegues and I were swapping songs (something Mongolians seem to love to do), and I had the chance to give my Mongolian a good work-out. Some time later we unfolded the beds in our train compartment, and went to sleep for a while. It was a lovely sleep, but oh too short – we arrived at our stop at 4am. However, I can’t complain too much, as the head of the Youth Federation kindly booked us into a local hotel, which we stopped off in for a few hours. After a hearty breakfast we began our trip to Dzunbayan, a small town in which some of the Mongolian Youth Federation’s volunteers are based. It was a 70-minute trek across the Gobi Desert. Luckily we were travelling in a sturdy Russian jeep, which had a lot of padding inside – necessary for all the bumps we went over. We got to our destination in one-piece, and what a place it was! I’d never seen anything like it. Dzubayan is now a bit of a ghost town, as many of the building are either left unoccupied or are falling to bits. The town used to be a big army base, but since the end of communism the army’s priorities changed and so the majority of the soldiers (and the jobs they brought with them) went away. Thus, in the space of a year the town’s population went from 12,000 to 2,000. This kind of situation is relatively common in Mongolia – it’s one of the few places in the world in which people are moving from towns into the countryside.

Visiting school / doing training – after settling into our youth hostel (which, bytheway, was absolutely freezing!), we made our way to the local school. It is here that the volunteers we came to see work. These volunteers are part of a programme which encourages well-trained teachers to go out to the countryside to support regional communities. They are needed as most of the well-educated people leave the regions to go to Ulaanbaatar, where real money can be made. It was a real pleasure to meet them, and to see the work that they do. They were really friendly, warm and committed people. After having a tour round the different classes (and the very well-behaved students!), I was privileged enough to run a training session for them. We looked at how to run group meetings effectively – as they are so far away from the Youth Federation’s headquarters, it seemed a good idea to help them to become more self-autonomous, and to give them more tools to decide/do things by themselves. It was well received, but despite my warnings the odd mobile phone still went off in the meeting (for some bizarre reason, it’s perfectly acceptable for people to interrupt any meeting, no matter how formal, to answer their mobile phone!). The day was rounded off with some celebrations organised by the school. The students sang songs, and did dances. Then the evening progressed into a disco (I would have never have guessed that Dr Dre would have such a following in the Gobi Desert!). It was so kind of the school to organise this – all for four people coming to visit…

Trip to army base – whilst I mentioned above that the majority of the army left Dzunbayan, there is still a small army base that remains. The town’s location, not far from the Chinese border, makes it still of some strategic importance (I think it’s fair to say that the Mongolians do not trust the Chinese, and so worry that a future invasion may occur. They think the only thing protecting them from the Chinese is that Russia, Mongolia’s neighbour to the North, would not take kindly to further Chinese expansion). Anyway, I digress. We got taken round the army base, and got to see the regiment’s museum. It was fascinating to see all the communist flags, and to see photos of meetings between Mongolian officers and those of other communist nations. However, perhaps most surprising was what the regiment is doing today. In recent years it has sent soldiers to serve in Iraq, supporting the Polish troops in the region. Back in the UK (correct me if I’m wrong) we never heard anything about the contribution that smaller countries are making to support the “War on Terror”.

Whilst all these activities were fun, the main highlight was just meeting the people. Their kindness really struck me, everywhere we went we were treated to the best food they had (even though most of the people were quite poor). I made many new friends, despite my lack of Mongolian language skills (although I’m sure the large amounts of vodka that were going round helped things run that little bit more smoothly). It was also interesting to see the life the people live – they are a small community that is surrounded by desert and a long way from the nearest town. Despite this/because of this, they seemed very happy. I’ve been invited to go back to Dzunbayan sometime next year, an invite I’d like to take up at some stage…

P.S. The locals were desperately looking for an English-language teacher (not necessarily with relevant qualifications!) to join their English language department, so if anyone’s interested get back to me. It would be an amazing experience – the chance to live in the Gobi for a few months doesn’t come every day - and you’d really help these very nice people out!

What a busy week!

All continues to go well in Mongolia. I'm glad that I've settled in well. Must be something to do with the fact that I'm being kept busy - I don't have much time to mooch around and get depressed, and as I've also got things to do it's easier to convince myself that I'm doing something useful. This week was particularly packed. My week of work and play included:

VSO conferences - This week has been full of VSO conferences. All the different VSO volunteers came to Ulaanbaatar (about 60% are based elsewhere), and were joined by the VSO office staff and the many representatives of the partner organisations that VSO works with. The future direction of VSO and the challenges faced by volunteers and their employers were both discussed. Also, all the different programme areas were reviewed (VSO Mongolia works in four main programme areas - health, education, secure livelihoods and national volunteering - my area!). I was privileged enough to be the volunteer representative for the national volunteering programme area review. I got to see both the planning and presentation stages of this review, and so got a unique inside view of how VSO formulates its future programme strategy, and how it presents this information to its partners and volunteers.

Trip to Hustai Park - On Saturday I made the very bumpy trip to Hustai Park, a national park about 100 kilometres from Ulaanbaatar. It was a great day! We left in a very old Russian jeep, which whilst not being very comfortable, was just the thing for the dirt tracks outside the capital city (getting around Mongolia is a long process, as tarmac only seems to exist in Ulaanbaatar). After 3 hours we arrived at our destination, and began our search for wildlife. Our primary aim was to spot some Przewalski horses, the only wild horses left in the world (the only horses not to have been bred by man for man made purposes - as a result they have 26 chromosomes, as opposed to the standard 24). After a short drive through the park we spotted something in the distance... What luck, a group of 10 horses! They were very beautiful.

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After spending an hour with the horses, we made our way through the outskirts of the park. Whilst I thought the main highlight of the trip had already come, I was happily mistaken. We can across a group of herders who were taking their livestock to the abattoirs in Ulaanbaatar. Four people were transporting over 1000 yaks and 500 sheep - what a sight! Not only that, but they had two camels with them, to help with the transportation of their belongings. My first chance to be up-close with camels! They are beautiful creatures, their faces full of expression - the photo here being a prime example! It was good to talk with the herders (we had a guide with us to help with translation). It turned out they had travelled from the Gobi region, so had been transporting their herd for 5 weeks already. It's difficult to imagine having to transport things over such a long distance, but this is everyday life for many Mongolians. Anyway, you can see some photos of the trip at http://picasaweb.google.com/schliner/TripToHustaiPark - hope you enjoy them!

The Rugby World Cup Final - Last night (or to be more precise this morning) I and some of the other VSO volunteers stayed up to watch the Big Match - the Rugby World Cup Final, England Vs South Africa. We managed to find out that the match was being broadcast on TV5 Asie (a French international TV station), so went round to a friend's house to watch the game. The pre-match build up was the best bit, as all of us had to stay up until 3am local time for the kick-off. However, I now wish I didn't bother staying up - it was a pretty awful game in my opinion! Anyway, at least I had some fellow English people to commiserate with, and the South African volunteer was very humble in victory...

As you can see, I've managed to fit a lot in. However, I'm now feeling pretty exhausted. Early night for me tonight! Best wishes,

Robert

The road goes on...

Wow - two months down! The time seems to be flying at the moment, which I suppose is a good sign. I'm being kept quite busy at work, which suits me just fine (makes me feel like I'm being useful and stops me moping around). Outside of work, I've managed to make some friends, so have a good group of people to relax with. My flat's pretty sorted now, having even managed to get a toilet seat for our bathroom - luxury! So, what have I been up to the last seven days? Well, whilst this week was a bit more packed, I managed to fit in two more visits to different network member organisations.

The first trip was to DEMO, the Democracy Education Centre. DEMO does lots of interesting work, focusing on three main areas - to promote democratic ideals amongst secondary school children, to build the capacity of Mongolian non-governmental organisations, and to provide training to young people involved in politics. It was this final area that really caught my imagination- DEMO runs sessions for the youth members of all political parties, in the hope that the young people will work together across party lines, and build up long term friendships for each other. This way DEMO hopes that politics will be run with a spirit of cooperation and respect in the future. Perhaps this is something that could be replicated in the UK?

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On Wednesday I went to the Second Hospital, and after 10 minutes stumbled across what I was looking for - the Mongolian Blood Donors Association's headquarters. I say 'stumbled' because the headquarters are little more than a small room. After talking with the director, it became apparent that the association is in need of some assistance. They don't have a permanent office space, they only have one staff member (the director, who incidentally volunteers her time - there is no money available to pay for her salary) and don't have a computer. Despite all these problems the association does fantastic stuff! They manage to encourage people in the many different regions of Mongolia to donate their blood, which is no easy feat considering the land area that has to be covered (Mongolia is the largest landlocked country in the world). Whilst the need for blood is not always met, the work of the National Blood Donors Association has saved many lives. During the same visit I was privileged to meet some of the more experienced blood donors, who had interesting stories to tell. I felt very lucky to shake hands with Mongolia's oldest blood donor (who can be seen in the photo below, second from the right).

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October the 11th was the National Day for the Blind, so I made the trip up to the Trade Union Centre to see what was going on (and to also view the assistance that some National AIDS Foundation volunteers were offering to the event). I had a great time. The main bulk of the day was focused raising awareness about blind people, and giving the general public advice on how to care for their sight. The hall was packed with stalls, many of which had blind people showcasing some of the work they do (the majority worked in the field of handicrafts or food production). However, the stall that really caught my attention was the one run by the Association of Blind Masseurs. Whilst it was a slight abuse of my work time, my host for the day insisted that I have not one, but two massages! I tell you what - the masseurs were fantastic! However, the Mongolian style of massage is very strong and forceful. At one point the masseur grabbed hold of my neck and in one swift motion pushed it to the other side of my body. CRACK! I had never heard such a sound, or thought that my body could produce it! Feeling very relaxed I then went to see a concert organised by blind performers. I was very impressed - the singers were fantastic, and the piano players also deserve a mention. All in all the day was great, one of the best I've had in Mongolia so far. Work can be tough sometimes...

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That's me signing off until next weekend. Hope you all have a good week ahead, take care of yourselves,

sas

Robert

A first glimpse of Mongolian winter...

Woke up this morning and looked outside my window… snow! My first glimpse of snow in Mongolia. I guess that’s it, winter is going to set in soon. Luckily enough my wardrobe is well stocked with jumpers, hats and gloves, so the cold temperatures don’t seem as daunting as they once were (thanks to all of you who donated to my winter clothing fund!). I was very excited by the snow, but was soon brought down to earth by my flatmate Jon. He’s from a cold part of Canada and so is used to it all – he was very blasé!

Trips to different Mongolian organisations – this week I had the pleasure of going to visit four more of the network member organisations (see last week’s entry for more details). First up was Dayartugs (which literally means “it’s perfect”). Dayartugs are a very small, newly established NGO, which aims to promote volunteerism amongst Mongolian young people. Dayartugs is working on many projects, despite the fact that they only have three staff members, all of which work voluntarily. Second was the Liberal Women’s Brain Pool, an organisation set up after the fall of communism to promote women’s ideas. Whilst some of the work that the organisation deals with is linked specifically to helping women (especially in the field of political participation), the organisation was keen to point out the many other areas that it has worked on. I was very impressed by the mobile library scheme that they have set up, designed to improve literacy in rural areas.

Thursday’s visit was to the Ethics and Motherland Association. I got the chance to talk to their passionate director, Ulaankhuu, who explained to me the association’s mission – to promote respect for Mongolia and to build a sense of community amongst young people (things that have been damaged in the years since the fall of communism). Last but not least was a trip to see Service for Peace. Service for Peace are an international organisation that use local volunteers to do community projects. The volunteers believe that a peaceful society can be built if everyone works together for the good of all. All the organisations are doing fantastic things, despite facing financial constraints – I’m very impressed with Mongolian organisations so far!

Visit to school’s anniversary concert – I’ve made friends with a Mongolian student and was lucky enough to be taken out to Ulaanbaatar’s very grand wrestling palace. Unfortunately I was not there to see wrestling, but on the other hand I got to see something that not many other foreigners would see – the Number 16 School’s 65th Anniversary celebrations! What an extravaganza it was. The wrestling stadium was packed with cheering young people, all proud to celebrate their school’s history. Different classes took charge of different stages of the evening (and even the teachers joined in at the end), so there were a real variety of events. We were treated to gymnastic performances, dances and songs. It was a great event, and left a big impression on me – not many young people in the UK would have such pride in their school, and not many schools would dare attempt such a grandiose occasion (even for their 100th birthday!).

That’s it for another week. Just before I sign off I’d like to say thanks for everyone’s comments left on the blog, and any emails you’ve been sending me. It always cheers me up to receive comments/news from all of you (even if I don’t reply straight away!). Best wishes to everyone,

Robert