Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. Schoolchildren of Mankhan soum, Khovd aimag, School No. 12 of the capital city, School No. 119 and School No. 12 for children with special needs in the capital city’s Nalaikh district are being involved in teamwork activities to come up with possible solutions for pressing issues in the sectors of environment, health, economy, information technology, and personal development. Consisting of five students, each team has a student with hearing impairment as well as a sign language interpreter to help them communicate. The teams would also have advisors, who are young adults with various professions such as engineer, economist, biotechnology specialist, doctor, and marketing specialist. 

The team that was assigned with the topic of environmental issues came up with the idea to announce a challenge to support recycling by placing three different garbage bins at home to separate glasses, cans, and plastic bottles. They said, “One person’s trash becomes another person’s resource. This is referred to as recycling, and it has many advantages such as preserving natural resources as well as saving energy and finances.” The team aims to call on people to make it a habit to separate their waste by urging their schools, neighborhoods, and districts to take the corresponding measures.

As for the team that was assigned with economics, they decided to start a challenge for savings in order to improve the Financial Intelligence Quotient (FQ) of youth. By having their own savings, they considered that it would have a positive effect on one of the pressing issues faced in the economic sector - reducing poverty.

The IT team highlighted the issue of screen “addiction” in youth, and announced a challenge to limit their daily use of one’s mobile phones to 3 hours over the course of a week. With #3hScreenYSC as the hashtag for their challenge, they called on youth to not use their phones for one hour after waking up in the morning and one hour before going to sleep through the ‘Let’s Stay Apart from TV Screens’ challenge.

“It has become common for most households to have a family member who has health issues. As a result, a large percentage of the working age people in Mongolia spend most of their money to acquire the necessary medicines and treatment. To prevent ourselves from becoming ill, living a healthy lifestyle is the most important - this includes doing active physical movements, having a healthy diet, taking care of our mental health, and being involved in regular checkups,” said the students’ team in charge of pressing issues in the healthcare sector. For their challenge, they called on others to regularly go hiking by adding it to their weekly plans.

In the framework of the topic for self development, the students called on their peers to share their knowledge and skills for a specific area or field on social media and help others. They said, “Social media tends to have a lot of negative information. Some people even go to the extent of talking bad about someone who asked about something that they did not know. By helping others understand what we already know instead, we would not only have less stress but also have more opportunities to grow and learn together.”

This is how the ‘Youth Power’ event is organized in the framework of the Youth Sustainability Corps (YSC) program run by Mongol Ecology Center, co-funded by the European Union. At the event, Founder of the Deaf Club of Mongolia B.Tuvshinjargal, psychologist Ts.Delgermend, and human rights activist B.Bolorsaikhan participated as guest speakers to share their life experiences and motivate the students.

With funding from Australia’s Direct Aid Program, Mongol Ecology Center has also implemented the YSC program at School No. 29. First Secretary at the Embassy of Australia in Mongolia David Preston attended the Youth Power event and said, “Wonderful to see that our support through the Direct Aid Program is continuing to assist in a range of areas, including youth empowerment. With so much energy, enthusiasm and passion in these young people, it is clear that Mongolia’s future will be in good hands. Furthermore, the talk by speaker B.Tuvshinjargal was fantastic - not only proving that persons with disabilities have incredible talents and skills, but also a great role model for students to help them believe that everyone can reach their dreams.”

“The YSC program is implemented in Mankhan and Munkhkhairkhan soums of Khovd aimag, Dalanzadgad and Gurvantes soums of Umnugobi aimag, and Khatgal village and Khankh soum of Khuvsgul aimag as well as the Schools No. 119, 12, and 29 in the capital city. In the framework of the program, talks are organized to help high school students to choose their future professions, video content is prepared for students as an extracurricular activity, and micro-projects are initiated and implemented by students alongside organizing capacity building training for teachers. As most of our activities are organized online, it is open to all children and youth. In the future, we aim to implement the YSC program at all general education schools. Despite the original plans to organize the event in aims of increasing the participation of students in society and helping them become friends, our first Youth Power event was limited to a small group of students due to the current pandemic situation. The event will be organized on a wider scale in the future,” said Project Coordinator of Mongol Ecology Center A.Odontuya.

At the end of the event, the students wrote a letter for their future selves to read in a year. With each and everyone with a smile on their face and sparks in their eyes, they wish to become environmentally-friendly youth leaders to create an inclusive society. After the event, they also wrote comments as well as their experience at the event on sticky notes.