Mongolia National Workshop

About the meeting

On the 6-7 of June 2017, Mr. Bryce Hartley and Mr. Marco Roncarati from ESCAP Bangkok, Ms. Indra Ganzorig, a UN Volunteer from Bangkok, Mr. Kal Joffres from Tandemic in Malaysia and Mr. Jeff Goldman, a youth specialist from Bangkok, attended the National Workshop to test and apply the Youth Policy toolbox in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

The Youth Policy toolbox team in Mongolia, led by the Authority for Family, Child and Youth Development (AFCYD), identified and invited participants, provided support for organizing the meeting including provision of the venue, logistical arrangements, assignment of staff to the meeting and interpretation.

107 participants were invited to attend from Youth NGOs, International INGOs in Mongolia and Government from around the country. Altogether 73 participants attended, while 58 people responded to the Mongolia Participant Evaluation at the conclusion of the workshop.

Each of the 21 provinces of Mongolia had two representatives invited: one person from the local government and one person who works with or for youth. Ulaanbaatar has nine districts and two people from each district were invited. The other participants were representatives from Youth NGOs.

Day One – Tuesday 6^th June

Day One of the workshop started with opening statements from Mr. Roncarati and Deputy Chairman of the AFCYD Khaliun Boldbaatar, followed by ice breaker activities led by Ms. Ganzorig. Mr. Hartley then presented an introduction to the Youth Policy Toolbox and the activities being undertaken by his team in Bangkok. This was followed by a group discussion on what were the key issues plaguing youth in Mongolia, both in life and in the school to work transition. It was observed that the participants were engaged and active in the brainstorming process.

After the lunch break Mr. Batdorj G, head of the Youth Department at ACFYD, did a short presentation on current youth policy and the activities of the government followed by another brainstorming session about the solutions to the problems youth face in the school to work transition previously identified. The results of this session are as follows:

The afternoon consisted of a presentation detailing examples of best practice in smoothing the school to work transition internationally by Mr. Goldman. This included best practice from Krygyzstan and Kazakhstan. The day ended with a presentation by the Youth Policy Toolbox team in Mongolia who presented the work they had done, conducting experiments to test the toolbox in consultation with Mr. Kal Joffres at Tandemic.

Day Two – Wednesday 7 June

The second day of the workshop began with a presentation from Mr. Davaadorj B from AFCYD delivering a presentation on youth empowerment in Mongolia. The second session was group work to discuss how the Toolbox can be improved. Screen grabs of the website were translated by the Mongolian team and then printed. These were distributed to each table/group in order for the participants to write their suggestions on the paper for an effective visual prompt.

Feedback includes:

The next group work session was run to discuss and present how the learning component of the Toolbox can be improved. This included having teams discuss what they would like to learn in the online learning components. The results of this are as follows:

Feedback from the Participant Evaluation

Participants were asked to please provide any suggestions that could have made the workshop more effective and efficient. Their responses included:

• More focus on teaching organizational skills.
• Several responses commented that the translator on Day One was not skilled enough and as such they missed content such as that of Mr. Goldmans presentation as he was speaking in English.
• Introductory information needed to be specific and clear – this perhaps relates to the translation problems as well.
• It was good especially the part involving everyone talking and encouraging them to be creative and asking their opinions. However to have more actual results and to be efficient, it seemed better to also distribute paper copies of the slides besides showing them on the screen because it was hard to see the projected text.
• Counter-forum (second discussion) is needed.
• Detailed information should be given to the participants before the forum or discussion. Also, asking whether they received the information or not is important.
• The team should be a mixed group of individuals and NGO representatives.
• We want to know more about international experiences. Teamwork with real hands on experience was needed. Specific, quantitative data related to international youth needs to be mentioned and used more.
• Has to be funny, shouldn’t make participants get bored.
• Outcome of seminar should be mailed again.
• The study environment needed to be improved, also it would have been better if the participants were provided with detailed information before the workshop. Some participants seemed to be lost and confused.

Overwhelmingly the participants either agreed (27 respondents) or strongly agreed (24 respondents) with the statement “The Workshop enhanced my knowledge and skills of how to enhance the school-to-work transition.” Four participants reported they neither agree nor disagree while only three disagreed with the statement.

There was also clear agreement amongst the participants that “The Workshop provided an effective platform for participants to share their knowledge and experiences relevant to how to enhance the school-to-work transition.” 28 agreed with this statement, 10 strongly agreed, 12 neither agreed nor disagreed while four disagreed and four strongly disagreed.

Most agreed with the statement “The Workshop provided an effective platform for participants to share their knowledge and experiences relevant to how to enhance school to work transition.” With 24 respondents reporting they strongly agreed, 23 agreed, eight neither agreed nor disagreed and three disagree.

Conclusion

From these results we can conclude that the majority of participants found the National Workshop held on the 6^th and 7^th of June was an effective and worthwhile discussion of school to work transition in Mongolia and an effective platform at which to brainstorm and discuss the website. There was much commentary from the international participants that the Mongolian participants were energetic, engaged and participated effectively in the National Workshop.