Country: Mongolia
LEAD Mongolia
In Mongolia, Women’s Rights Advocates Say ‘Time’s Up’ on Harassment and Abuse
Gerelee Odonchimed watched the 2018 Golden Globes with awe as actors wore all-black outfits in solidarity with victims of sexual harassment and abuse. For Odonchimed, a lawyer and gender equality advocate who watched the awards ceremony from her home in Mongolia, the sea of black gowns truly meant “Time’s Up.”
“This is important,” she says of Hollywood’s new movement to fight sexual assault, harassment, and inequality in the workplace. “Discussions on workplace harassment are finally being brought up.”
In 2012, well before #MeToo and #TimesUp took over the social media stratosphere, Odonchimed started working as vice director for education and advocacy at Women for Change — a prominent women’s empowerment organizations in Mongolia — to combat the victim blaming and shaming that allows sexual harassment and abuse to go on unchallenged.
About one in five women in Mongolia are victims of violence or assault and one in three women are victims of domestic violence. Odonchimed explains this abuse is often excused as a “regular thing” in Mongolian culture.
But time for excuses is running out. The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements have been silently surging in Mongolia for some time, according to Ganchimeg Namsrai, another women’s empowerment advocate and senior researcher at the Press Institute of Mongolia. Namsrai and Odonchimed — both participants in World Learning’s Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia program — are among Mongolia’s best-and-brightest emerging leaders. And they’re fighting for change.
Challenges women face in Mongolia
Justice has long been elusive for women in Mongolian society, where there’s a serious lack of information about sexual assault and domestic abuse — compounded by prevailing public misconceptions.
Domestic violence in particular has been a taboo subject across most of the country, where centuries of nomadic tradition tell families to handle their affairs without government interference. Government itself hasn’t always taken violence against women seriously: Mongolia’s penal code didn’t recognize domestic violence as a crime until 2016. And still, to this day, many law enforcement officials are not properly trained to enforce those regulations, nor does Mongolia consider domestic violence a human rights issue.
Even in the media, there’s little discussion of the legal consequences of gender-based violence. In fact, according to Namsrai, media coverage often reinforces negative stigmas against women who are victims of abuse. In 2017, she spent the year researching Mongolian media coverage of domestic violence, harassment, and gender equity.
So far, the results have not been assuring. “We found that at large, issues of gender equality are not covered fairly or in an informed, unbiased way in the media,” she says. “Gender bias and stigma bleed through.”
Namsrai’s research looks at articles and other media coverage of gender-based violence. She found that 70 percent of the article sources are male, and 70 percent of the photos are of men even though 91 percent of victims are women. Men are portrayed as businessmen or political figures, whereas women are portrayed as “instigators” or simply as housewives undeserving of sympathy. It’s highly sensationalized and meant to grab headlines. The same is true of media coverage of sexual assault and harassment, she says.
“Victim blaming is everywhere,” agrees Odonchimed. It’s never about the crime, but it’s instead about what the women said, what she wore, or that she might have done something wrong.
Through her own educational outreach and advocacy work, Odonchimed has discovered there is too little public understanding of gender-based violence and harassment as human rights issues. That misinformation leads to shaming and silence, which perpetuates the harassment and abuse as it keeps women from speaking up. As Namsrai explains, “They’re afraid of the stigma and what people will say, how they will be shamed.”
The good news is there is finally a conversation emerging, say Odonchimed and Namsrai. Women are becoming braver and beginning to speak out publicly.
Changing the narrative
The movement toward change is becoming more and more visible in Mongolia. Namsrai and Odonchimed are up-and-coming custodians of this emerging movement in Mongolia, ready to move forward as more women speak out and demand answers.
Indeed, Odonchimed and Women for Change have spent years working to address sexual harassment on the streets, at universities, and in the workplace, namely through educational initiatives and leadership programs with young women.
“We really want to raise awareness about sexual harassment,” says Odonchimed. She explains that women often don’t realize when and how they’re being harassed — too often she hears, “Oh, I didn’t know that was sexual harassment.” For Odonchimed, her work is about getting people to think about these issues as human rights issues by educating them at a very early age about human rights, human dignity and respect.
In 2017, Women for Change launched the “Behind Closed Doors” project, which set out to personalize domestic violence by setting up booths where people listened to real incidents of domestic violence. Those recordings — which included the sound of mother being struck while a child cried in the background — elicited a powerful emotional response.
Later that year, another national campaign launched to combat violence against women and children. In early November, the “Open Your Eyes” campaign was introduced to demand that the government galvanize its efforts and strengthen legal protections for women and children who are victims of violence and sexual assault. Though the government had adopted the Law to Combat Domestic Violence in 2016, the activists and demonstrators of Open Your Eyes are arguing that too many cases of abuse go unreported because of poor implementation of the law as well as societal resistance to acknowledge abuse as an issue.
Odonchimed cautions that addressing this issue is not simply about changing male behavior. It runs deeper than that. “This is a societal problem,” she says. “It’s a problem that affects everyone, men and women, and we as a society have to figure out how to fix it.”
As they watch these movements take root in Mongolian society, both Odonchimed and Namsrai are becoming more hopeful about their own work. Through their LEAD Mongolia experience, too — which brought them together with other young, emerging leaders from all sectors to learn, network and work on projects together — they have become much better connected with the larger advocacy community.
“I am optimistic [after my LEAD experience] because I now know that if strong and passionate people come together, we can really do a lot,” Namsrai says. For her, this group signifies the promise of transformation throughout Mongolian society.
“Change is possible in Mongolia,” says Odonchimed. “When I look at other young people and I see how their attitudes are changing for the better, I am proud to be with them. I feel like change is coming.”
LEAD Mongolia is a World Learning program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is working with some of Mongolia’s best and brightest emerging democracy advocates. LEAD Fellows represent all different sectors of society, but they have a common ambition to spur positive change on the issues they care about most.
Written by LEAD Mongolia Project Director Adam LeClair
Learn Why This Mongolian Kindergarten Principal Is Teaching Kids How to Recycle
Lundeejantsan Tsoodol believes you’re never too young to learn about keeping the environment clean — even if you’re in kindergarten.
As a kindergarten principal, Tsoodol is working to instill community values in his own students at Kindergarten #5 in the small Mongolian city of Arvaikheer. These children are learning how to sort trash for recycling, make toys and household items from used bottles or paper, and decorate their classrooms with pencil holders and flower pots made of recyclable materials.
Arvaikheer is the pilot site for Eco-Friendly Kindergartens, a project that Tsoodol launched alongside a team of participants from World Learning’s Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia program. Eco-Friendly Kindergartens is working with three kindergartens in different provinces to introduce the 3R principles: reuse, reduce, and recycle.
But the project is also about so much more: Tsoodol argues that just the mere act of recycling shows children that small actions can benefit their entire community. It will encourage them to become responsible citizens who engage in even bigger ways as they get older. “This work is important,” he says. “We want to build up kids who have the right attitude to achieve because they are our future.”
Tsoodol joined the LEAD Mongolia Program in late July as part of the In-Country Thematic Program along with 29 other emerging leaders from 15 different provinces of Mongolia. “When I applied to LEAD I only thought, ‘OK, I’m going to get some skills.’ I wasn’t sure what skills I would get or even what skills I wanted,” he said. “But I knew I wanted to improve myself.” LEAD brought him into a community he never realized existed.
LEAD Fellows are quickly becoming the country’s most promising change-makers. LEAD Mongolia is a leadership development program for up-and-coming democracy advocates run in partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Those who take part vary in profession and background: some are young civil society activists, others are in local government or the private sector. The point is to bring them together to solve challenges and bring about change through group projects like Eco-Friendly Kindergartens.
From day one of LEAD, surrounded by other leaders with diverse experiences, Tsoodol says he quickly realized how much there was to learn. “Because of LEAD, I figured out what I didn’t know. And because of that, I figured out what I needed to learn and how I wanted to improve.”
Tsoodol realized he could find ways to ensure a solid start for his students despite serious challenges. Schools across the country are coping with overcrowding, including Kindergarten #5, which has enrolled 295 students despite being built to accommodate 140. Funding for public education has also stirred controversy in recent months. Teachers are one of the lowest paid groups of civil servants in Mongolia, paid between 535,000 to 608,500 Tughriks (around U.S. $250) a month. This has led to mass protests and threats of strikes. Many fear poor salaries are prompting skilled teachers to seek work in private schools, which offer higher pay, or seek work elsewhere altogether.
Still, Tsoodol remains undaunted. He doesn’t mind the extra students, especially during a period of high unemployment. “If we help one child, we help their family. If we can care for their child during the day, then they can find work and life can get better,” he explains.
Through projects like Eco-Friendly Kindergartens, too, he can help children build the foundations of their own lives. It sets an example for them of community involvement and it spurs hope — both for the kids and for the people around them. “The best part of this job is when you ask a kid, ‘What did you learn today?’ and you see their eyes widen,” he says. “When they learn something new, you can really see it in their confidence and you know there is hope for the future.”
Tsoodol offers an optimistic vision of that future. His school is alive with vibrant paintings on the wall and children’s art projects hanging in every room. Teachers greet visitors proudly as they show off classroom recycling projects. Parents and many others see this as not just a school, he says, but also a community hub that models what good community engagement looks like. “Schools are the heart of communities and we need to get them involved — students, teachers, parents,” he says.
It is clear that Tsoodol is doing exactly that. At Kindergarten #5, he is serving as a role model and demonstrating the democracy comes in all forms. As he learned through LEAD Mongolia, democracy is not forged by politicians in Ulaanbaatar but by the emerging leaders who create hope and allow for change to unfold in the most unexpected places and in unexpected ways.
New Film Spurs Change in Mongolian Employment Practices
Unemployment is one of the most critical issues facing Mongolia today. Though it was once considered one of the world’s fastest growing economies, the country’s employment rate has risen steeply in recent years. Last year, nearly 12 percent of Mongolians were out of work.
But the situation is even more dire for certain segments of the population: according to Mongolia’s National Statistical Office, 30 percent of people aged 20 to 24 are unemployed, a figure that soars to more than 70 percent for people with disabilities.
A new documentary argues that Mongolia’s unemployment crisis cannot be tackled without acknowledging this disparity and the social inequalities that make it possible. On July 28, a team of emerging civic leaders premiered the film Journey to Job, which aims to raise awareness of these social and institutional barriers facing young people seeking employment. The film was the culmination of their participation in World Learning’s Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia program, which works with democracy advocates to spur change in their communities.
“Social inequalities are largely unknown and ignored in Mongolia,” says Ariunsanaa Batsaikhan, CEO of Maral Angel Foundation for Children with Spina Bifida. She contends that this lack of awareness only stigmatizes disadvantaged populations and ultimately impedes the country’s chances of economic recovery.
Journey to Job focuses on the stories of three people: Otgonjargal, a young deaf man and skilled carpenter who has been actively but unsuccessfully looking for a job for three years; Munkhzaya, a single mother who hasn’t been able to find employment since her daughter was born with a disability six years ago; and Otgontsetseg, a 16-year-old woman who recently migrated from rural Mongolia to Ulaanbaatar, where she works as a bricklayer to support her family. Their distinct experiences underline the ramifications of social inequality.
“Our society has so much stigma against these groups. They can’t find jobs and Mongolia’s employers are losing important talent,” Batsaikhan says. As the documentary illustrates, stigmatized groups — such as persons with disabilities or internal migrants — are quickly labeled “lazy,” “uneducated,” or “incapable” and may be barred from decent work. But that’s the wrong approach.
Instead, the film argues for social inclusion, which is the practice of including all people in public life. The team of activists learned about social inclusion through their LEAD Mongolia fellowship exercises like the Privilege Walk, which physically demonstrates how privilege works by asking participants to take steps forward and backward for each social advantage or disadvantage to see how they rank among their peers. “After taking these workshops, we wanted to speak for as many identities as possible in a really big way,” adds Ganzorig Dolingor, another LEAD Fellow and co-founder and chief editor of the popular news site Unread Today.
And in addition to that moral imperative, there is an economic argument for embracing inclusion: Citizens who are excluded from society cannot contribute to it. “There’s the threat of what we lose economically when we don’t include all groups,” Dolingor says.
Dolgion Aldar, executive director of the Independent Research Institute of Mongolia (IRIM), provided data and research for the documentary project. Aldar commends the group and argues that issues of poverty and unemployment should be topics of interest not only to academics and politicians, but to everyone in society. “Young leaders [like LEAD Fellows] are drivers of change,” she says. “It’s important for them to understand and acknowledge deeper social and structural constraints that prevent people from improving their lives.”
LEAD Mongolia Fellows participating in the Privilege Walk.
Working on the documentary did give the team greater insight into inclusion. “The LEAD program made me see the broader picture,” Dolinger says. The team itself was composed of leaders from deaf advocacy and LGBT rights groups. They’re from rural areas as well as urban. Dolingor says that diversity made Journey to Job better: “When we include more groups [in our projects] we can have more impact. We can make more change.”
Now that the documentary is complete, the group will circulate Journey to Job widely to raise as much awareness as possible. “We want to show it to many target groups, especially corporate businesses,” says Enkhjin Selenge, one of the team leaders. Ultimately, the aim is to convince employers to hire talent from disadvantaged groups. “We want to make an impact on hiring practices,” Selenge says. “If companies start hiring disadvantaged groups, then we succeeded.”
There is already a glimmer of hope. Several LEAD Fellows are initiating conversations with their own employers about inclusive hiring: Selenge’s employer, Toyota Mongolia, plans to revise the company’s hiring policy and will soon hire its first-ever person with a disability, while the construction company where Batsaikhan works when not involved in civil society just hired a former convict and a deaf welder. The team also shared Journey to Job with department heads from Ulaanbaatar’s Municipal Employment Office as well as with Oyu Tolgoi, one of the largest private sector employers in Mongolia.
But their advocacy journey is just beginning. “We need to do more to raise awareness,” Selenge says. “This documentary is just one step.”
LEAD Mongolia is a World Learning program funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is working with some of Mongolia’s best and brightest emerging democracy advocates. LEAD Fellows represent all different sectors of society, but they have a common ambition to spur positive change on the issues they care about most.
Written by LEAD Mongolia Project Director Adam LeClair
How One Team of Activists Is Making Transparency Inclusive in Mongolia
Transparency hinges on the concept of inclusion: By bringing the general public into discussions about systems of governance, society can root out corruption and hold leaders accountable. But a group of up-and-coming anti-corruption advocates in Mongolia argue that current transparency efforts aren’t inclusive enough.
“Without inviting different groups of society [to help solve a problem] we miss out on certain [points of view],” says Bilguun Batjargal, an Ulaanbaatar-based lawyer. “Yes, you can avoid exclusion. Yes, you can avoid being discriminatory. But it’s not enough.” To be truly inclusive, all communities need to be brought into conversations about corruption and transparency.
Batjargal and a group of 10 other emerging anti-corruption leaders are working with World Learning on a transparency project that employs these principles of social inclusion. The Transparent and Accountable School project aims to rebuild trust between the schools and community of Ulaanbaatar’s Nalaikh District, an underserved area on the outskirts of the capital.
Trust is sorely lacking in that relationship. Nominchimeg Davaanyam, an education specialist and NGO leader working on the Transparent and Accountable School project, says administrators discourage parents from getting involved in school budgeting and planning issues. Teachers and students, too, are shut out. Davaanyam argues this only allows corruption to flourish, which she worries will erode trust in Mongolia’s democratic transition and discourage the next generation. “If young people start accepting [corruption] as a norm, then we are doomed,” she says. “They need to be educated on topics related to anti-corruption and transparency.”
The project team wants to address this dearth of transparency by providing a platform for teachers, parents, and students to get involved and to realize they have the power to do something about corruption. The intent is to build transparency and trust through public participation in school planning, budgeting, and other processes. Through a series of trainings, the team is helping the community create their own transparency plan for the school.
Selection of the Nalaikh District was an intentional act of inclusion. The area has a sizable Kazakh community — the largest ethnic minority in Mongolia. The project group crafted a design to include the Kazakh community, ensuring Kazakh language interpreters were present at all activities and translating content into both Kazakh and Mongolian languages.
But the transparency project takes inclusion even further than that: Instead of simply bringing the obvious stakeholders — like parents and teachers — into the conversation, the Transparent and Accountable School project is engaging everyone from students to school janitors. “We wanted to include all layers of the school community, not just the school administrators, but also the people who clean the school,” Davaanyam says. The team argued that if certain groups aren’t included, there’s a greater risk for corruption.
The Transparent and Accountable School project team came to see the importance of social inclusion as participants in World Learning’s Leaders Advancing Democracy program (LEAD Mongolia), which works with some of Mongolia’s best and brightest emerging democracy advocates. In partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development, LEAD Fellows visit the U.S. to take part in intensive trainings, then implement group projects in groups tackling issues like poverty, youth unemployment, the environment or, like this group, transparency and corruption. Inclusion, a core value of World Learning, was the subject of several of the group’s training workshops.
“A year ago, I wouldn’t have considered that inclusion would play a big role in transparency or anti-corruption. I thought of it as just trying to raise awareness on the issue of corruption itself and that’s it,” Davaanyam says. “[The workshop] really allowed me to think differently about how we exclude or include different groups of people.”
In turn, the Transparent and Accountable School project has encouraged members of the Nalaikh community to think differently about how they can contribute to the school. As a community-owned model of democracy, the program demonstrated that all voices matter and should be included in discussions about the school’s future. “It opened the horizons of everyone involved,” Davaanyam says.
Batjargal agrees. He recalls the moment when the Nalaikh school cleaner, who took part in all the team’s trainings, delivered a speech at their project closing event. This level of involvement — from school principal to school cleaner — is uncommon in Mongolia. “She felt empowered,” he says. “She realized she can do more than just do her job. She can part of the process and have a voice in the process. She can be part of so much more.”
That is truly social inclusion in action.
In August 2016, LEAD Mongolia piloted World Learning’s TAAP — Transforming Agency, Access and Power — Inclusion Initiative, a systematic analytical approach to integrating inclusion throughout a project life-cycle by “tapping” in to the voices, skills and experiences of all people, including those marginalized and excluded from power. LEAD Mongolia is the first project to commit to and employ the TAAP Approach and Toolkit to embed inclusion sensitivity in all aspects of the project life-cycle. The TAAP approach seeks to ensure that both World Learning’s LEAD Mongolia team as well as our participants have the skills to become practitioners of inclusive development. The LEAD team’s Transparent and Accountable School project is an example of this and illustrates the potential of supporting inclusion champions the world over.
Written by: LEAD Mongolia Project Director Adam LeClair
Mongolia Grapples With Deaf Education in Not-So-Silent Debate
Earlier this year, a group of protesters gathered outside of Ulaanbaatar’s School 29 — the only school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students in all of Mongolia. They held up signs declaring, “We can’t understand our lessons. You’re violating our right to an education. Carry out all classes in sign language.” These student protesters argued they only wanted the same rights as any other student in Mongolia: equal access to quality education and the ability to be taught in their own language.
Mongolia approved sign language as the native language for deaf and hard of hearing citizens in February 2016, when it adopted its Law on the Rights of Disabled People. But students say their right to be taught in sign language is not being upheld at School 29, where almost half their teachers do not know the language well enough.
That student protest has since sparked a wider public debate. In May, Mongol TV’s primetime Nuudel Shiidel program aired a live panel debate titled “Silent Discussion,” featuring six guests from the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, including one of the student protesters. It was Mongolia’s first-ever public discussion hosted in sign language. “Mongol TV has been following the story since students protested for better quality education,” says Lkhagya Erdene, executive news producer at Mongol TV and moderator of the panel. “We wanted to hear from the deaf community.”
As a LEAD Mongolia Fellow, Erdene is committed to using his role in the media to amplify the voices of Mongolia’s diverse populations. LEAD (Leaders Advancing Democracy) is a World Learning program funded by USAID, which is working with some of Mongolia’s best and brightest emerging democracy advocates. LEAD Fellows represent all different sectors of society, but they have a common ambition to spur positive change on the issues they care about most.
The idea for a sign language debate was born in May at the regional LEAD Alliance Summit, which connects LEAD Mongolia Fellows with like-minded peers from Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar. During a coffee break, Erdene struck up a conversation with program mentor Oyungerel Tsedevdamba, a Mongolian author and human rights activist. “She pitched me [the idea to host the first-ever] deaf panel on prime-time television,” Erdene says. “I had to do it. Our audiences and society need to hear what the marginalized groups have to say if we want to build a humane, democratic society.”
Silent Discussion’s six panelists had much to say through their interpreters. Nemekhbayar Batnasan — another LEAD Fellow who is also a project manager at the Deaf Information Center in Ulaanbaatar — argued that the community’s biggest challenge is poor access to sign language interpreters. “There are 65 television channels [in Mongolia] but only Mongolian National Broadcast sign interprets its 45-minute news program,” Batnasan explained in a later interview. None of the country’s public service institutions provide interpreters either.
Batnasan further argues that little progress has been made toward ensuring equal rights to education, employment, and health services for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. The student protests at School 29 highlight that lack of progress: When students are not taught in their native sign language, they may not gain sufficient literacy skills to enroll in institutions of higher education — which in turn limits their future job prospects. They are left behind.
It is uncertain how long it will take for the deaf community to fully access their rights to basic services, but the community maintains hope. Silent Discussion caught the attention of the Mongolian public, leading to further debate on social media. Erdene, who promises to continue covering disability issues, hopes the panel will inspire many others to stand up in support of the deaf community. Meanwhile, Batnasan encourages young people with hearing impairment to create their own opportunities. “You are young and there are many things to do for our future,” he says. “Continue your fight for equal access to education. Be consistent and results will come.”
World Learning’s LEAD Mongolia program strives to forge meaningful connections whereby emerging leaders like Erdene and Batnasan can meet, exchange views, and push forward important dialogue. Further, the LEAD Alliance Summit implemented by IRI provided a critical networking opportunity to initiate new ideas, such as Silent Discussion. The program is made possible with funding the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Written by: Munguntuya Otgonjargal, World Learning Mongolia’s Training Program Officer and Adam LeClair, World Learning Project Director for LEAD Mongolia.
Fighting Corruption in Mongolia
As part of a series on the Leaders Advancing Democracy Mongolia (LEAD Mongolia) program, World Learning sat down with program participants to learn more about who they are, what they learned from LEAD Mongolia and how they plan to use their experience back home.
LEAD Mongolia is a two year initiative run by World Learning with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which aims to bring together aspiring leaders from Mongolia to the United States to learn about democracy, and how they can work together to tackle Mongolia’s most pressing issues, including corruption, poverty, discrimination, urbanization and the environment.
Civil society leaders in Mongolia are working hard to address persistent government corruption, a problem they say undercuts economic and social progress for citizens across the country.
It’s a decades old problem for the young democracy. A 2005 report by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) highlighted that the country suffered from a lack of transparency and access to information, an inadequate civil service system, limited political will and weak government institutions.
Seven years later, in 2012, Mongolia’s former leader Nambaryn Enkhbayar was arrested on live television and charged with five counts of corruption. He was jailed for four years after being found guilty of taking television equipment intended as a donation to a monastery, and charges relating to the illegal privatization of a hotel and publishing house.
Despite his arrest, Enkhbayar’s activities are just the tip of the iceberg, according to Battulga Chambu, a LEAD Mongolia Fellow and government employee who is committed to fighting corruption.
“Corruption has become one of Mongolia’s biggest issues,” Chambu says.
Chambu is a supervisor at the Government Procurement Agency of Mongolia in Dornod, a province in East Mongolia. His agency was created in 2012 to foster transparency in the 21 provinces across the country, and to provide support for public and private sectors working to reign in official corruption. But Chambu says despite the recognition of the agency, corruption remains prevalent, and prevents citizens from accessing independent information, financial statistics or news.
“In my opinion, corruption is the root of all problems in Mongolia. If you defeat this problem, then other problems we face will become better,” says Chambu. He argues that one of the best tools is education, and he wants to start a program that gives high school students information about laws and teaches them how to avoid corruption.
Chambu participated in the LEAD Mongolia program to learn how he can help tackle corruption and transparency issues. He says the program taught him how to organize civic action plans, and exposed him to the American experience and culture — the kind of cross-cultural collaboration that will help leaders like him to find the answers to Mongolia’s thorniest problems.
Engaging in Peaceful Civil Society in Mongolia
As part of a series on the Leaders Advancing Democracy Mongolia (LEAD Mongolia) program, World Learning sat down with program participants to learn more about who they are, what they learned from LEAD Mongolia and how they plan to use their experience back home.
LEAD Mongolia is a two year initiative run by World Learning with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which aims to bring together aspiring leaders from Mongolia to the United States to learn about democracy, and how they can work together to tackle Mongolia’s most pressing issues, including corruption, poverty, discrimination, urbanization and the environment.
The fatal riots in Ulaanbaatar in 2008, in which five people were killed and over 300 injured, were a wake-up call for Mongolians to educate citizens about how to engage peacefully in civil society.
Sparked by allegations of voter fraud, the riots, according to The Guardian, were among of the worst on record, resulting in a four day state of emergency issued by the government. It was a setback in what had been a smooth democratic transition for Mongolia, a place that some Mongolian educators and leaders call the only democracy between the Sea of Japan and Eastern Europe.
Among Mongolia’s next generation of pro-democracy leaders is Bolorsaikhan Badamsambu, who works with Mongolia’s youth on civic education. Badamsambu is the vice coordinator of the “All for Education!” campaign, which is part of the National Civil Society Coalition of Mongolia. The global campaign works to influence civil society participation, implement non-discriminatory services, and advocate for education across all sectors of society.
Badamsambu says discrimination and marginalization are rampant, which discourages many from becoming politically active. “After the parliamentary election in 2008, many Mongolian youth expressed their opinion, but in a violent way,” he recalls. “That alone already shows that we need to work and empower youth before they turn to violence. Youth engagement is really low because of the lack of quality education, including civic education. In addition, Mongolian youth are always marginalized and discriminated [against] because of their age or their experience or even their gender.”
He says to overcome this situation, youth need to be more aware that they have the power to make a positive change, and can do so in a peaceful way. While on World Learning’s LEAD exchange program in the U.S., Badamsambu says he was impressed at the level of inclusivity across both public and private sectors. “Whether we are working in the private sector or civil society, we are contributing to a much more democratic and open, free civil society within our country. So from this trip, I realized that every person needs to contribute to the wellbeing of people in this country.”
Badamsambu intends to implement a project that focuses on increasing civic engagement by educating students and their parents. He says he would like to work on providing information that will help the public make informed decisions about local and national politics.
Improving Freedom of the Press in Mongolia
As part of a series on the Leaders Advancing Democracy Mongolia (LEAD Mongolia) program, World Learning sat down with program participants to learn more about who they are, what they learned from LEAD Mongolia and how they plan to use their experience back home.
LEAD Mongolia is a two year initiative run by World Learning with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which aims to bring together aspiring leaders from Mongolia to the United States to learn about democracy, and how they can work together to tackle Mongolia’s most pressing issues, including corruption, poverty, discrimination, urbanization and the environment.
Freedom of the press is central for Mongolian journalists like Tanan Myagmar, who works as a foreign relations officer for the official state-owned news agency. She recently returned to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia’s capital, after three weeks in the U.S. as a participant in the Leaders Advancing Democracy — Mongolia (LEAD Mongolia) program.
The program is a two year initiative run by World Learning, and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), designed to support Mongolia’s next generation of democracy advocates. Myagmar took part in the program to get first-hand exposure to media in the U.S. with the aim of creating more open and transparent press in Mongolia.
Media organizations have flourished following the 1990 peaceful revolution ending communist rule in Mongolia, and there are now more than 400 print and broadcast media outlets. However, Myagmar says corruption within the political system and media is still rampant. “Mongolian journalism has a long way to go,” she says. “From publishing paid news plagiarism to bias reporting, journalism in Mongolia is still awash with unethical conduct and we urgently need to raise our professional standards,” she says.
A 2016 UNESCO report states that paid media content remains prevalent and points to anecdotal evidence that journalists are bribed. Myagmar says there’s also an unofficial agreement between many news organizations and prominent government officials to keep controversial issues out of the news. She fears that the country could backslide if this kind of practice continues. “I experienced during my coverage of the elections back in 2008 and 2012 how politicians exploited the loopholes of the campaign law that allowed them to buy the media and get illegally elected. The same nightmare scenario repeated itself during the 2016 election,” she says.
She adds that while journalists are aware of the situation, few are willing to take the personal risks necessary to challenge the status quo. “This has to be tamed, if not fully stopped. Otherwise if people keep being denied their rights for access to unbiased information and quality journalism, everything we have achieved in the [past] 27 years as a democratic country could vanish in a day.”
Myagmar says journalists are not protected by any laws, and many investigative journalists fear they may be heavily penalized for publishing independent reports. A 2014 report by MediaShift, an organization that offers insight and analysis of media around the world, including corruption within media, says Mongolia’s defamation laws criminalize defamation and slander, and fines run steep: journalists accused of defamation can be charged $6000 to $17,000.
Despite the difficulties, Myagmar is optimistic about the future. A new generation of journalists is emerging, and Myagmar says she believes they will change the state of the media, with a little support: “We need to equip these journalists with world-class education and an unshakable belief that what they do will make a difference.”
Expanding Disability Services in Mongolia
As part of a series on the Leaders Advancing Democracy Mongolia (LEAD Mongolia) program, World Learning sat down with program participants to learn more about who they are, what they learned from LEAD Mongolia and how they plan to use their experience back home.
LEAD Mongolia is a two year initiative run by World Learning with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which aims to bring together aspiring leaders from Mongolia to the United States to learn about democracy, and how they can work together to tackle Mongolia’s most pressing issues, including corruption, poverty, discrimination, urbanization and the environment.
For people with disabilities in Mongolia, there are many obstacles to overcome. Nemkekhbayar Batnasan, a deaf professional living in the capital Ulaanbaatar, says there’s a common misperception that people born with disabilities are being punished for their sins in a past life, which leads to discrimination, and a lack of awareness and information about their needs.
Batnasan, an information officer for the Mongolian National Federation of the Deaf, says there are not enough sign language interpreters in the country, and there are very few programs that offer closed captioning, despite a new law that requires public TV channels to do so.
“Interpreters or written publications make information much more accessible for the deaf,” he says. “However, Mongolian National Broadcasting is the only station that has sign language interpreters, and that’s only during their 40-minute news. That means there’s 68 other TV channels that don’t have subtitles for their programs.”
The opportunities to learn sign language are limited, he says, noting that state universities don’t offer training for interpreters, so the only way to learn is by attending classes at the Mongolian Association of Sign Language Interpreters.
Education for the deaf is also inadequate, Batnasan says, especially in the rural communities, where life can be much harder. He says the majority of students drop out of school. To change that trend, Batnasan says he would like to see sign language used more in public, and wants to make Video Relay Services (VRS) available across the country. VRS is a form of telecommunication available in many developed countries that enables people who are deaf or hard of hearing to communicate through video instead of text.
Batnasan thinks VRS can help in myriad ways, including in emergencies. “Today emergency contact centers [police, medical, fire] only receive voice calls and deaf people cannot call emergency services. If video relaying services are introduced to emergency call centers there would be a huge possibility to connect all district-level agencies such as district hospitals, police, and social service centers.”
Batnasan spent three weeks in the United States as part of the LEAD Mongolia program, run by World Learning and funded by USAID. He says his time in the U.S. allowed him to see how open and inclusive the country is toward people with disabilities.
During a visit to Capitol Hill, he had the opportunity to meet with lawmakers and an association for the deaf, which he said deeply impacted him. “I was so proud to see that those people have knowledge, skills and responsibility.”
A team of sign language interpreters worked with Batnasan during the three-week U.S. exchange program in Washington, D.C. and at the University of Virginia. “The sign language interpreters assigned to me were extremely helpful,” he said. “I realized that we need to improve our sign language and deaf children’s education. We should invite experienced volunteers and experts from foreign countries and collaborate with them, and learn from them to improve ourselves.”
Valery Nadjibe, an associate program officer at World Learning, says a Mongolian interpreter was initially going to join, but he had to back out at the last minute due to visa issues. “We searched and searched and we could not find anyone in the U.S. that knew Mongolian Sign Language. So with the help of World Learning program associate, Rebecca Berman, who is also deaf, we managed to get four interpreters.”
Two teams of two interpreters, e with a hearing ASL interpreter and a Certified Deaf Interpreter (CDI), interpreted for Batnasan taking breaks every 20 minutes. With each team, the hearing interpreter signed American Sign Language to the Certified Deaf interpreter, who interpreted in International Sign. Before the program started, the interpreters skyped with Batnasan to get to know him. “They met him at the airport, and were there from that moment on, working with him and supporting him every step of the way,” Nadjibe says.
“World Learning’s mission is to be inclusive for everyone,” Berman says, adding that it’s important to make sure the needs of all participants are met during the planning process. “For this particular program, we helped connect the LEAD organizers with interpreting agencies and we connected them with the DC Deaf Community resources in order to make sure this program was 100% accessible.”
Batnasan was very impressed with the support he received and recommends the LEAD program to people of all abilities. “I have learned many new things and heard interesting stories about democracy and freedom with the help of the sign language interpreters provided by World Learning. I think if deaf youths participate in this program, they will be equipped to implement projects and work with other young people, and they will have the support to do so.”
Creating a Breath of Fresh Air in Mongolia
As part of a series on the Leaders Advancing Democracy Mongolia (LEAD Mongolia) program, World Learning sat down with program participants to learn more about who they are, what they learned from LEAD Mongolia and how they plan to use their experience back home.
LEAD Mongolia is a two year initiative run by World Learning with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which aims to bring together aspiring leaders from Mongolia to the United States to learn about democracy, and how they can work together to tackle Mongolia’s most pressing issues, including corruption, poverty, discrimination, urbanization and the environment.
Like many cities, Mongolia’s capital is plagued by heavy pollution. For Dr. Lodoisamba Delgerzul, a trained medical doctor now working for the Faculty of Public Health at Mongolia National University, improving air quality and creating a healthy future for all Mongolians is a vital mission.
Dr. Delgerzul recently returned to Mongolia after spending three weeks in the United States as part of the Leaders Advancing Democracy — Mongolia (LEAD Mongolia) program, which brings together Mongolia’s up-and-coming democracy advocates to share knowledge and insight about their country’s most pressing challenges. Dr. Lodoisamba is addressing the impact of pollution on Mongolian citizens.
According to UNICEF, the leading cause of death for children under five in Mongolia is smog-induced pneumonia. The pollution problem in Ulaanbaatar has also resulted in a high number of children suffering from lower lung functionality and respiratory infections. Dr. Delgerzul says one of the main culprits of the city’s pollution is the use of old fashioned stoves during the winter. She says the problem is getting worse, but because it’s only happening in one city, the government has done little to help. “During the winter the air pollution is at its worst. It’s at a hazardous level, but during summer and spring time there’s no air pollution problem so that’s why our government is not taking action.”
In late January more than 1000 protestors gathered outside the nation’s parliament building to demand government action in combatting the air pollution problem. To coincide with this demonstration, participants of the LEAD Mongolia program held their own peaceful rally at the University of Virginia. They held signs saying “Air pollution is everyone’s problem!” and “Clean air is a human right! #AirPollution #BreatheMongolia”.
Dr. Delgurzul and her fellow LEAD participants plan to implement projects to reduce air pollution, and ask the government to use funding from vehicle taxes to find solutions to end this problematic health issue. “The government says they don’t have money to fix the problem, but they do,” she said. “It’s feasible, and we obviously have the budget to do it.”
Dr. Delgerzul says the LEAD program allowed her to meet with many inspirational leaders who are willing to work with her to help create a healthier future for her country. “What I learned in this program is that if we want to change society, we have to work as a team to be able to educate the public because real power is in the hands of the citizens, not the hands of the decision makers.”
Alumni Thematic International Exchange Seminars
Participant Profile
Participants are alumni of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs and vary in age and level of expertise, but all will be engaged in the seminar topic and highly motivated to create change in their communities.
Please consult the list of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs below.
- U.S. citizen: https://exchanges.state.gov/us
- Non-U.S. citizen: https://exchanges.state.gov/non-us
Participant Selection
Alumni TIES participants who are not U.S. citizens are nominated by the U.S. Embassies or Consulates in their countries. Please contact the U.S. Embassy or Consulate in your country to learn how you can participate in Alumni TIES. Potential Alumni TIES participants who are living in the United States can apply for specific seminars managed by World Learning. The web link to the online application will be distributed widely by the Office of Alumni Affairs of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.
All participants for Alumni TIES seminars are selected by the U.S. Department of State.
Program Design
Alumni TIES seminars take place in six world regions and the U.S.; each seminar is three to four days for small groups of alumni. The seminars include speakers, capacity development trainings, and alumni networking activities. Through the small grants initiative, alumni have the opportunity to take action and make a positive difference in their communities.
Learn More
Watch more videos about the Alumni TIES program.
Read stories from past participants about their experiences at the seminars or with their small grant projects on the Alumni TIES blog.
For information on programs for U.S. government-sponsored exchange program alumni visit the International Exchange Alumni website.
Alumni TIES is sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. Government and supported in its implementation by World Learning, in partnership with the Office of Alumni Affairs of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA).
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Leaders Advancing Democracy- Mongolia Program
Mongolia: Nomadic and Urban Cultures
Fulbright Specialist Program
What?
Link U.S. Experts and International Institutions
A program of the U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Fulbright Specialist Program is a unique opportunity for U.S. academics and established professionals to engage in two- to six-week consultancies at host institutions across the globe. Host institutions, including universities, non-profits, and other organizations, develop and submit projects for approval by the U.S. Embassy or Fulbright Commission in their country in wide-ranging academic and professional fields that build capacity and promote long-lasting linkages between individuals and institutions in the U.S. and abroad.
Why?
Address Priorities and Build Institutional Capacity at Institutions Around the World
An important companion to the traditional Fulbright Scholar Program, the Fulbright Specialist Program differs by providing short-term exchange experiences that tackle discrete, sometimes rapid response, projects. The Fulbright Specialist Program encourages participation of both university faculty and highly experienced non-academics, including legal experts, business professionals, public health practitioners, scientists, IT professionals, artists, and journalists. The program is a mutually beneficial opportunity for the Specialist who may not be available to leave their position for an extended period of time and the host institution which needs an experienced partner to jointly tackle a problem or examine an issue on a short-term basis.
How?
Become a Fulbright Specialist: Apply to Join the Roster
Fulbright Specialists are a diverse group of highly experienced, well-established faculty members and professionals who represent a wide variety of academic disciplines and professions. In order to be eligible to serve as a Fulbright Specialist, candidates must have significant experience in their respective professional field and be a U.S. citizen at time of application. Eligible disciplines and professional fields supported by the Fulbright Specialist Program are listed below.
- Agriculture
- American Studies
- Anthropology
- Archeology
- Biology Education
- Business Administration
- Chemistry Education
- Communications and Journalism
- Computer Science and Information Technology
- Economics
- Education
- Engineering Education
- Environmental Science
- Law
- Library Science
- Math Education
- Peace and Conflict Resolution Studies
- Physics Education
- Political Science
- Public Administration
- Public/Global Health
- Social Work
- Sociology
- Urban Planning
Interested candidates can find more information about the Fulbright Specialist Program and apply to serve as a Specialist at fulbrightspecialist.worldlearning.org. Candidates who meet all eligibility requirements will have their full applications reviewed by a panel of their professional peers. Candidates who are approved by the peer review panels will then join the Fulbright Specialist Roster. Individuals remain on the Specialist Roster for a three-year term and are eligible to be matched with a host institution’s project abroad during that tenure.
The following costs are covered for those Fulbright Specialists who are matched to a project: international and domestic airfare, ground transportation, visa fees, lodging, meals, and incidentals. A daily honorarium is also provided.
Become a Host: Bring a Fulbright Specialist to Your Institution
The Fulbright Specialist Program allows universities, cultural centers, non-governmental organizations, and other institutions abroad to host a leading U.S. academic or professional to work on diverse, short-term collaborative projects where the Specialist conducts activities which may include, but are not limited to:
- Delivering a seminar or workshop
- Consulting on faculty or workforce development
- Developing academic or training curricula and materials
- Lecturing at the graduate or undergraduate level
- Conducting needs assessments or evaluations for a program or institution
Institutions interested in hosting a Fulbright Specialist should contact their local Fulbright Commission or U.S. Embassy for country-specific requirements and deadlines.
Contact information for all participating countries is available on the fulbrightspecialist.worldlearning.org website.
For more information or questions about the Fulbright Specialist Program, please email [email protected].
The Fulbright Specialist Program is a program of the U.S. Department of State with funding provided by the U.S. government and administered by World Learning.
Global Undergraduate Exchange Program
To learn more and apply, please visit the Global UGRAD website.
For highlights from the Global UGRAD Program, visit our newsletter, the Global Gazette.
EducationUSA Academy
For further information: [email protected]
“Through EducationUSA Academy, I made new friends from all over the world, I learned about the American education system and requirements for getting accepted to an American university, and I visited one of the most interesting places in the United States in a friendly and helpful group.” -2017 EducationUSA Academy participant
Student Eligibility
Participants must:
- Be students (currently enrolled or recently graduated), ages 15-18 at the time of the summer program;
- Have at least three years of middle to high school English language study (language requirements may vary slightly by institution);
- Be mature and self-disciplined, with a commitment to active participation in the Academy and its programming;
- Aspire to pursue a portion of their higher education in the U.S.; and
- Have sufficient personal funds to cover program fees and international airfare.
More information is available from your local EducationUSA adviser. To find your local EducationUSA advising center, please visit the EducationUSA website.
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