Context…
Alcoholism is a major issue throughout Mongolia leaving many children suffering with neglect from alcoholic parents or relatives. A lot of children are abandoned or left to relatives to care for them. Their plight is even more acute in urban centres where masses survive as street vagabonds while others are prone to social ills due to these family and related problems. Children living in these environments don’t know the value of their existence and have no dreams for their future.
Mongolia also has the 5th highest use of Facebook in the world adversely affecting the youth. In general, children use phones rather than reading books. There are no educational books available for them to read even if they wanted to. As a result, many children are struggling to keep up with their classes and peers especially after the isolation of Covid-19 restrictions.
Covid-19 epidemic has also increased the poverty in Mongolia leaving many parents of children attending our project without work or working for a meagre salary unable to provide for their families. Through this relief project children are provided with food and hopefully will encourage parents to improve the way they live.
Good Neighbour Society (GNS) is an international NGO approved by the Mongolian Immigration Foreign Affair Department to run the project from June 2022 to June 2025. We have team members who are interested in joining our ministry but the government requirement of hiring foreign workers is high…7 fulltime salaried workers employed for one foreigner visa. The project needs 2 to 4 foreign workers. With rapid inflation the workers’ salary are increasing.
Vision…
To care for these children with love and show them how precious they are…helping identify their gifts and improve their reading, writing, music, and craft skills to allow them to dream for the future and improve the way they live.
To see children enjoy reading books and freely share learnings from the books, enjoy their social life and flourish through learning instead of obsession with online games, watching movies and idle chatting
Aim…
To impact the lives of the participants through reading books and education enabling them to make changes to improve the way they live.
Project Plan
The project began in May 2022 and is outlined below. The progress of each child will depend on their abilities, motivation, support, and the deficit in their education…it may take 6 months to 2 years.
First year:
- Open 4 libraries in the local area:
- Library 1 – Hailaast is the head center…located in ger district 7km north-west of the Ulaanbaatar city
- Library 2 – Dambdarjaa…located in ger district, population-15,000
- Library 3 – 13 district in Baynzurh state…located in the town.
- Library 4 – Dari-eh Baynzurh state…located in ger district closest to the city, population-15,000 with no school nor kindergarten or nursery home in this area.
- Promote each library to the locals.
- Mobile library until all libraries are settled.
- Help the children to improve Mongolian writing and mathematics following their book reading and learning ability development program for grades 1 to 6.
- Group book reviews every two weeks to develop their reasoning skills and share their thought logically.
Second year:
- Start English lessons with children whose Mongolian writing has improved.
- Commence extra classes such as craft, music instrument, computer mostly at the Hailaast center where there is enough room.
- Continue book reading and book reviews.
- Challenge children to read one book a day and write book reviews.
Third year:
- Children will be helped to shape and reach their dreams and aspirations for their future.
- Regular teenagers group meetings…including job research and learning about available work and choices available to them.
- Children will participate in activities to improve their social life – hiking, camping, bike-riding, trip to different places, playing musical instrument, origami, craft, computer activities, table tennis, dancing, play-acting, art, Book sharing club, etc…
In 10 years, it is anticipated there will be 6 more little libraries coordinated by 2 centres and 2 mobile libraries in the countryside. It is expected that…those participating will live a meaningful life and challenge their society to change for the better; jobs will be created for the social disadvantaged and disabled people including opening a secondhanded shop; and provision of small business training for parents to start their own businesses such as finger food selling.
Beneficiaries
The programme focusses on children who are struggling with the school programs for whatever reason…especially grades 1 to 6 without any access to books. It is anticipated about 120 children will benefit…30 per library.
Older children will benefit from the social events and outdoor activities.
Staffing and training…
The government requirement of hiring foreign workers is high…7 fulltime salaried workers employed for 1foreigner visa. The project needs 4 foreign workers requiring so 28 local Mongolian workers. With rapid inflation the workers’ salary are increasing.
Training for the staff will include teaching methods, understanding children, their needs and development stages and administrative skills, report writing and leadership.
Your support needed…
To help GNS develop these vital libraries enabling these impoverished children in Mongolia to enjoy reading and learning allowing them to have dreams and aspirations for a better future, please click on “Donate to this Project” on the right sidebar. Thank you.
All gifts are tax deductible and will benefit this project in their entirety except for bank fees.
