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Young citizens are at the forefront of change

Article update: Last year, World Learning supported youth through a series of “Ideas into Action” design sprints, which are one piece of World Learning’s Technical Approaches on Civic Engagement and Advocacy. These citizen-centered sprints provided a streamlined framework through which youth analyzed local issues, devised potential solutions, and created action plans — all during fast, two-day workshops. In follow-up, three participants shared the impact of the design sprints on themselves and their community. Scroll down to hear what they had to say!

Throughout the world, it is often youth who are driving democratic reform, economic growth, and social change in their communities and countries. Using a combination of traditional civic tools such as protests and campaigns and more innovative approaches like social media memes, passionate youth are activating their networks to tackle climate change, foster equity in education and health systems, and create new employment opportunities. Through this, they are harnessing their energy to promote a new set of norms and policies to include more diverse voices and populations.

While social media has allowed more inclusive mobilization by reaching youth from farther areas, many movements are still concentrated in capital cities. Youth in more remote areas are often excluded from national campaigns, funded trainings and activities, and other government services. They lack access to the essential information and tools, cannot afford expensive travel, and are unable to leave home responsibilities for the extended time it takes to reach the capital.

Group in Dundgovi, Mongolia, present their concept poster on creating an easy e-commerce platform for local small businesses.

This discrepancy in access to programs can be seen in Mongolia. In April, hundreds of youth gathered outside the government palace in Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar, to protest high levels of inflation, political corruption, inefficient government spending, food shortages, and unemployment. Protests heavily relied on youth already in the capital, while a large number of youth outside the capital were unable to participate due to the prohibitive amount of time and cost to reach Ulaanbaatar from their respective aimags.

World Learning began tackling this challenge in 2016 through its Leaders Advancing Democracy-Mongolia Program (LEAD). Participants worked with communities to design and implement projects that addressed key areas in need of support and change, such as the environment, poverty, and anti-corruption. These projects benefitted more than 9,000 people directly, and more than 4 million people indirectly. According to an external evaluation, the program “contributed to greater social inclusion of traditionally excluded communities,” and also “encouraged those communities to make their voices heard in decision-making.”

Following the success of LEAD, alumni called for more localized, shorter trainings while maintaining a focus on socially excluded communities. This led to the creation of the “Ideas into Action” design sprints.

This citizen-centered model provides a streamlined framework through which youth analyze local issues, devise potential solutions, and then bring these solutions to action all during fast, two-day workshops. In the process, youth use human-centered design principles to rapidly learn local decision-making processes, identify key networks, and complete the project cycle. Ultimately, the goal is to give participants the tools and platform to freely learn and create their own innovative, implementable solutions.

In Mongolia, LEAD alumni throughout the country were trained as facilitators and oversaw the sprint methodology in their communities. The combination of the streamlined structure of the sprints, with the guidance from local facilitators, allowed World Learning to reach youth in even the most rural and often excluded aimags, such as Bayan Ulgii, Mongolia’s only Muslim- and Kazakh-majority aimag.

Mongolian youth in Orkhon brainstorming, clustering, and prioritizing local challenges.

Over time, it became clear that many of these complex and multifaceted challenges could not be solved through a two-day workshop. The program goals therefore shifted from being results-based to process-focused. As a result, the design sprints provided a much-needed opportunity for youth to explore issues in-depth, learn new perspectives, and discover how to collectively mobilize citizens, government networks, and private-sector resources to create positive change.

Feedback from participants in the design sprints showed this was the first time many had full control — and the critical skills needed — to solve problems in their local communities. The mix of participants from public and private sectors helped groups see issues from different angles and perspectives. The flexible nature of the sprints also allowed participants to think critically about issues important to them and have autonomy over how to solve them.

“I learned that when we dig deep into the root causes of the issue, it is easier to understand the issue thoroughly and find its solution,” one participant said.

World Learning’s “Ideas into Action” design sprints are one piece of World Learning’s Technical Approaches — Civic Engagement and Advocacy. This work ensures that youth from all areas of the country learn effective tools for activism and support their efforts to create sustainable change in their own lives and communities.

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Supporting Inclusive Development in Mongolia: The Legacy of LEAD

By Munguntuya Otgonjargal, Senior Program Officer, and Meghan Burland, Chief of Party, Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia

Inclusion has always been at the forefront of World Learning’s approach to creating a more peaceful and just world, and its USAID-funded Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia program has been no exception. From the program’s inception in 2016, LEAD has prioritized inclusion as one of the hallmarks of its programming — from the initial program design to outreach and implementation. Now, five years later, the LEAD Mongolia program has just concluded, after supporting thousands of young people in gaining new knowledge and skills in democracy, advocacy, civic engagement, and social inclusion.

On September 10, World Learning hosted the “Legacy of LEAD” event in Ulaanbaatar to highlight the LEAD program’s legacy with an official launch of the Mongolian version of the World Learning “Transforming Agency, Access, and Power” (TAAP) Toolkit. The TAAP Toolkit, originally launched in 2018, is an interactive guide for more inclusive development to amplify the voices, opportunities, and dignity of all people.

With five years of successes and lessons learned, the World Learning Mongolia team aimed to showcase the achievements of the program and provide a useful resource for the development community in Mongolia. The Mongolian translation will serve as an invaluable resource for development practitioners, civil society, the private sector, and government officials across the country. During the September 10 event, World Learning staff and LEAD program alumni highlighted the importance of inclusion and shared real-life examples of how the TAAP Toolkit can be utilized to ensure that all people have a voice in their community or workplace.

Why Inclusion Matters

In August 2016, World Learning staff carried out a Transforming Agency, Access, and Power (TAAP) assessment in Mongolia, paving the way to create an inclusive design for the program and new opportunities for social inclusion over the project’s lifecycle. Before, during, and after this assessment, World Learning met with dozens of individuals and organizations, with a particular focus on gender, disability, LGBTI, youth, rural and nomadic populations and Kazakh minority community members. Not only did these meetings and discussions inform the design of the LEAD program, but they also provided important insights and connections that proved essential to ensuring LEAD had representation from diverse groups.

LEAD’s Deputy Chief of Party, Khulan Dashpuntsag, recalled initial stakeholder meetings during these very early days of the program in 2016. She remembers visiting with members of the deaf community and learning that they were not often consulted on issues that directly affected their daily lives; for example, School №29 in Ulaanbaatar, a school for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, had bells to denote the end and beginning of classes. Most students and teachers could not hear these bells, yet nothing had been done to provide a solution. Through the civic education component of the LEAD program, students and teachers at School №29 worked together with stakeholders to install a lights-based system at the school, which was more suited to students’ and teachers’ needs.

This story and countless others like it demonstrate the importance of inclusion, ensuring that a variety of voices are heard, and that community members have a say in what happens in their own lives. This belief is what drove the World Learning team to incorporate inclusive development practices throughout the LEAD Mongolia program, from design to applications and outreach to technical content.

TAAP In Practice

During the “Legacy of LEAD” event, several alumni of the LEAD program shared how they have used the TAAP Toolkit and inclusive development methods in practice in their professional lives. The alumni came from civil society, the private sector, and government, emphasizing how these methods can be used across sectors to strengthen organizations and promote inclusive practices.

“I hope this approach will open up opportunities for people to participate in civic action.”

LEAD 2019 US Exchange Program Fellow Purevjav Tumendemberel is currently a project officer for the Mongolian Youth Council, a non-governmental organization that empowers young people to become active citizens and leaders. While he noted that civil society organizations can sometimes lose sight of inclusive processes when focusing on the end results of a project, he emphasized the versatility of the TAAP Toolkit in countering this tunnel vision, as the toolkit can be utilized at various stages of development and program planning. “I hope this approach will open up opportunities for people to participate in civic action,” he stated.

Although many people would not think of the private sector when they hear the term ‘inclusive development,’ LEAD 2018 US Exchange Program Fellow Telmen Gerelt explained how inclusive practices can be successfully implemented in the private sector, particularly in relation to hiring and staff development. As the Chief Executive Officer at ARD Credit, Telmen spoke of using TAAP practices to ensure that a variety of his staff’s voices were being heard and that the company’s hiring and human resources practices became more inclusive.

Telmen highlighted updating human resources policies at Mongol Post (a company with over 2,000 employees) to make them more inclusive. For example, the policy changes aimed to reduce or eliminate ways in which women were sometimes discriminated against in workplace hiring processes due to time out of the workforce to raise their children. He also spoke about efforts to improve mechanisms for employee input and feedback in decision-making of the company.

“I want more people to use the TAAP Toolkit, as I have experienced firsthand the positive results that can be achieved. I especially urge the private sector to use this toolkit because when the employees feel included and heard and when the workplace is equally inclusive, employers benefit more,” Telmen said.

Bulganchimeg Bayasgalant, Deputy Director of the National Development Agency and LEAD 2016 US Exchange Program alumna, spoke of the importance of government agencies implementing inclusive practices like those found in the TAAP Toolkit. She used the four phases of TAAP to explain how government agencies can be more inclusive, from initial analysis to inclusive design and implementation. Bulganchimeg provided several examples, including an internship program at the NDA designed to help youth gain more practical work experience and a one-month capacity building program for Mongolian start-ups.

“At the end of the day, we’re trying to broaden our perspectives through this toolkit as everyone is different,” she summarized.

Inclusive Development from Start to Finish: The LEAD Mongolia Experience

LEAD Mongolia became the first project to commit to the TAAP approach to embed inclusion sensitivity in all aspects of the project life cycle. During the past five years, the LEAD Mongolia program integrated all five core TAAP principles throughout its design, implementation, and accountability mechanisms.

After the initial assessment in 2016, three key recommendations were developed:

1. Expand the program’s original target groups to also include the Kazakh ethnic group and internal migrants. Based on this recommendation, the program team strategized and budgeted our program outreach to hold information sessions at locations that are accessible and welcoming for these groups.

2. Consciously focus on deepening participants’ understanding of and sensitivity to the concepts and patterns of inclusion, marginalization and exclusion, and inclusive development across project components. With this in mind, the team designed program content to include at least two technical sessions on diversity and inclusion for each LEAD Mongolia cohort. Through these sessions, participants increased their understanding of inclusion in their communities and were able to initiate projects that improve the overall inclusive environment and awareness in their professional and personal lives.

3. Finally, the assessment found that an inclusive, creative, and ongoing communication strategy is the key to reaching the greatest number of people from diverse backgrounds. All of LEAD’s content was mindfully created with inclusive aspects, such as videos including sign language and/or subtitles and Kazakh subtitles, as well as having image posters with separate texts for the blind community, among other efforts.

Over the years, LEAD Fellows equipped with new inclusion skills have implemented some incredible initiatives within their communities. One of the latest examples is from LEAD 2017 US Exchange Program alumnus, Bekbolat Bugibay. Bekbolat lives in Bayan-Ulgii province, the only Kazakh majority province in Mongolia. He recently finished building a girls’ dormitory for the Bayan-Ulgii branch of Khovd University. Since it is a university for the entire western region, many female students arrive with no place to live and are prone to various challenges. He recognized this issue and started raising funds to build a dormitory for those students, who otherwise would have not been able to get a quality education due to their circumstances. Of the project and the role his LEAD experience played, he said, “The LEAD program had the great advantage of providing equal opportunities to all young people regardless of their background, ethnicity, or where they work or where they live. Advocacy for youth through youth representation was the best approach.”

Stories like Bekbolat’s reminds us why we do what we do and how important it is to keep working to include everyone’s voices. Building a fully inclusive society takes time, and everyone’s effort is instrumental. However, if society can continue to be mindful and open to more inclusive processes, great progress can be made.

The Legacy of LEAD

The Mongolian version of the TAAP Toolkit can be found here.

As Khulan explains, “While the LEAD Mongolia program may be ending, the TAAP Toolkit can continue to be a resource for the development community here for years to come. This is truly one of the legacies of LEAD.”

Launched in September 2016, LEAD Mongolia was a five-year leadership development program — funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by World Learning — that exposed 246 emerging Mongolian leaders to best practices in democracy and good governance, strengthening their ability to advocate for their communities and engage with policymakers. Since its inception, the LEAD program has focused on developing a strong network of young Mongolian democracy advocates who have a unique vision and desire to create positive change in their communities. These changemakers have implemented 26 civic action projects over five years, focusing on LEAD Mongolia’s key policy themes of poverty alleviation and unemployment, environment and urbanization, and transparency and anti-corruption.

Through its partner, the International Republican Institute, the program has also connected young Mongolians with their counterparts in Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar, highlighting Mongolia’s peaceful democratic transition as an example in the region. The civic education component, implemented by the Center for Citizenship Education, developed and introduced civic education curriculum for teachers and students at the high school level in Ulaanbaatar and all 21 aimags.

LEAD brought together students and young professionals representing different sectors and experiences to take part in civic advocacy and leadership training, exchanges, and community action planning, all aimed at fostering a strong network of young democracy advocates across the country.

The contents of this article are the responsibility of World Learning and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

Six LEAD Mongolia Alumni Share Their Presidential Election Experiences

By Meghan Burland, Chief of Party, Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia

Mongolia’s June 9 presidential elections marked the country’s third round of voting in 13 months. While voter turnout was historically low, likely due to an increase in COVID-19 cases in the days preceding the election, 59 percent of eligible voters came out to elect former Prime Minister U. Khurelsukh from the Mongolian People’s Party to a six-year term as president.

As with the previous parliamentary and local elections, alumni from the USAID-funded Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) program used their training to support the election process by serving as civil society observers, volunteering at polling stations, and recording voter turnout in real-time.

Observing Elections

As civil society election observers, LEAD alumni helped safeguard the integrity of the presidential vote. Ganzorig Tsedenbal, a 2018 U.S. Exchange Program Fellow, observed the election in Ulaanbaatar as part of a civil society monitoring effort organized by Youth Policy Watch, a local NGO. At his polling station, the process went smoothly, with observers from the three political parties joining the civil society effort, sharing information and ideas. By volunteering as a civil society observer, Ganzorig says he wanted to play a role in ensuring a fair election and felt confident and useful in helping to “prevent any possible violations or fraud.”

Another 2018 U.S. Exchange Program Fellow, Altanchimeg Purevsuren, also observed the election as part of Youth Policy Watch’s effort. However, her observation came with a twist — currently living in Seoul, she observed Mongolians residing in South Korea voting at the embassy in the capital. Having previously worked at Mongolia’s General Election Commission (GEC) for more than seven years, Altanchimeg has substantial experience in elections work, but this was her first time participating on behalf of civil society.

Altanchimeg observed voting at the embassy in Seoul over two days and says there was an exciting atmosphere at the embassy, with voters wearing traditional clothes, bringing their families, and taking photos in front of the embassy and the Mongolian flag.

A woman stands behind two ballot boxes at the Mongolian Embassy in Seoul. — LEAD Mongolia U.S. Exchange Program Fellow Altanchimeg Purevsuren at the Mongolian Embassy in Seoul.

“When voters are coming to the embassy polling station, it is so meaningful for them,” she says. “They were proud of their participation in the election.”

Shirnen Zorigt, a 2020 In-Country Program Fellow, took a different approach by joining a volunteer team to monitor the election for accessibility for people with disabilities and develop recommendations to make voting more accessible in the future. This effort was organized by the Parent Teacher Association of Mongolia (PTAM) and included nongovernmental organizations supporting disability rights, people with disabilities, and other citizens.

As a visually impaired voter, Shirnen went into the observation process well aware of the challenges people with disabilities may face when voting. His goal in participating was to shine a light on these issues and provide realistic proposals for ways government agencies could address these barriers to participation. Shirnen, Ganzorig, and Altanchimeg all note that their LEAD training helped them take a human rights approach in the observation process and focus on inclusion in the elections, especially for women, people with disabilities, and youth.

“If we strive for a democratic and equal society, its most valuable thing must be people,” Shirnen says. “The right to vote and to be elected is the most important thing in the society we are aiming to build right now.”

A man wearing glasses and a lanyard around his neck stands outside. — LEAD Mongolia In-Country Program Fellow Shirnen Zorigt on election day.

For this election, the GEC improved voter education efforts for deaf and visually impaired voters, providing information on voter rights and the election process in accessible formats. In cooperation with the GEC, PTAM also organized trainings on the rights of voters with disabilities for polling station staff nationwide. However, some shortcomings remained, including that political parties did not provide enough accessible information for voters with disabilities and many polling stations were not fully accessible.

Overall, Shirnen says it was a “great step forward” to have a team of voters with disabilities involved in election observation and providing recommendations, as well as having accessibility trainings for polling station staff.

Tracking Voter Turnout

Other alumni contributed to the election by working directly with the GEC to improve the effectiveness and transparency of voter turnout data. Ganchimeg Namsrai, a 2017 In-Country Program Fellow, and Sanjaasuren Munkhbat, a 2018 U.S. Exchange Program Fellow, were part of a team from the LEAD Alumni Association that received support from World Learning and the GEC to implement the “Making Elections Effective and Transparent” (MEET) project.

A woman stands in front of a sign for the Mongolian 2021 election — LEAD Mongolia In-Country Program Fellow Ganchimeg Namsrai on election day.

The project aimed to develop and utilize a comprehensive online platform to track voter turnout and share that information transparently with the public. In previous elections, the GEC released voter turnout four times during the day, with a two-to-three-hour lag. This information was collected via telephone from every polling station nationwide and announced at a press conference. Citizens were not able to access voter turnout data on their own.

To address these issues, the team created a mobile application that integrated data from every election station with internet access; those stations without internet access would provide their data by calling in at set times during the day. The integrated data was displayed on a web platform, where citizens could access the information on any device with internet access. The voter data was disaggregated by location, gender, and age, in contrast to previous elections. As a result of the MEET project, this year the GEC released election turnout data to the public on an hourly basis, with 90–95% accuracy. The LEAD Alumni Association has turned over the platform to the GEC to use in future elections, which will allow for additional analysis of voter turnout and trends.

The data from this year’s election revealed that young people, particularly those between 20 and 30 years old, had the lowest turnout (43.72% for voters aged 20–24 and 46.32% for those aged 25–29). As a young country, the low turnout of youth voters on June 9 indicates that young people need to be more actively involved in future elections to drive change. Ganchimeg believes the government and civil society should work together to develop research-based policies and plans specifically to improve youth participation.

“The active participation of young people in elections is an indisputable basis for their input into public policy and, in turn, for accountability of the elected officials,” she says.

Ganchimeg, as team leader, also notes how important it was to have support from government agencies like the GEC and the General Authority for State Registration to successfully implement the project.

“Working with government agencies as a representative of civil society has been a new experience and success for me,” she says. “I also understood the importance of cooperation and understanding between stakeholders.”

A man points at a large touch screen showing a map of Mongolia's voting districts. — LEAD Mongolia U.S. Exchange Program Fellow Sanjaasuren Munkhbat reviewing voting data.

Sanjaasuren, a data specialist and IT engineer, oversaw and managed the development of the software and technology. While there were some challenges installing the mobile application due to cybersecurity and timing concerns, he says the project was worth it because it offered transparent access to turnout data, which can now be analyzed and used to improve voter participation during elections.

“I think there is no way to solve a problem without revealing it,” Sanjaasuren says, later adding, “Now we have a wide range of data, and we should find reasons and solutions.”

Volunteering at Polling Stations

On the government side, 2017 In-Country Program Fellow Munkhzul Tsend served as the chairperson of a polling station commission in Bayankhongor aimag (province). In Mongolia, polling station commissions are volunteer groups composed of civil servants that have to pass an examination to work in this capacity. Munkhzul had previously volunteered for this commission seven times, in presidential, parliamentary, and local elections. As the chairperson at her station, Munkhzul was responsible for turning over the election documents properly and ensuring preparations are made within the framework of the law. From her perspective as a polling station volunteer, the election proceeded smoothly, with officials following a pre-approved schedule.

There were additional measures taken this year, including regular disinfection of all polling stations, manual counting of all ballots at every polling station nationwide, and using the new MEET application to submit voter turnout data. Munkzhul was also able to use the MEET application to present voter turnout data at the polling station and noted that it enabled them to record voter turnout data in a timely manner, an improvement from previous elections. She also cites her LEAD program experience in providing her with the tools and techniques to manage and lead her team working in the polling station.

The LEAD program emphasizes the strength of the LEAD network and the importance of working together to achieve a common goal, and this was in evidence during the June 9 election. For example, one of the leaders at Youth Policy Watch is also a LEAD Mongolia alumna, and LEAD alumni have observed in their effort for both the 2020 parliamentary and 2021 presidential elections. Altanchimeg learned of her observation opportunity through the LEAD Mongolia Facebook group. The LEAD Alumni Association had previously worked with the GEC on last year’s elections, setting up a fruitful collaboration that continued this year.

Although LEAD alumni participated in the election in different capacities, all emphasized the importance of voting in a democratic society. Sanjaasuren credited learning the fundamentals of democracy during his LEAD experience as one of the reasons he worked to implement the MEET project despite implementation challenges.

Shirnen summarizes it best—voting “may seem like a right, but…it is a civic duty that everyone must fulfill.”

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LEAD Mongolia is a five-year leadership development program — funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by World Learning — that brings together young professionals representing different sectors and experiences to take part in civic advocacy and leadership training, exchanges, and community action planning, all aimed at fostering a strong network of young democracy advocates across the country.

This article was made possible through the translation assistance of World Learning Program Officer Munkhkhishig Dashtseren.

The contents of this article are the responsibility of World Learning and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

What 100 Days in Office Taught Eight LEAD Mongolia Alumni

By Meghan Burland, Chief of Party, Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia

In many places, local elected officials are often the people taking care of a citizen’s daily needs — from determining local community development projects to maintaining roads and infrastructure. Additionally, national-level politicians usually get their start at the state or local levels, learning the ropes of government and how to ensure their policy goals and ideas are prioritized. Although local elections often do not receive the same level of attention as national elections, they are equally as important in determining the trajectory of a city, district, or state.

On October 15, 2020, Mongolia held its most recent election for representatives of local councils across the country. These local councils, known as Citizens’ Representatives Khurals (CRKs), are responsible for making and enacting local policies. More than 17,000 candidates from nine political parties and coalitions competed for 8,169 seats in the capital of Ulaanbaatar, nine districts within the capital, 21 aimags (provinces), and 330 soums (sub-provinces).

Eighteen alumni from World Learning’s Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia program ran in the election, with eight winning seats in either their provincial, sub-provincial, or district council. Below, all eight reflect on their experience running for office and the first 100 days of their term in office.

Several of the alumni noted that expanding youth engagement played an important role in their decision to run for office. Soronzonbold Alexandr, a 2019 In-Country Program Fellow, was elected to the CRK for the 17th district in Darkhan soum. His motivation for entering politics was to increase youth participation and to improve the living and working conditions of young people in his community. Munkhbat Nergui, a 2017 In-Country Program Fellow and CRK member from Sukhbaatar soum in Selenge aimag, expressed a similar motivation — to increase youth political participation in order to build a “just, open, democratic, and inclusive society.”

Erdenetugs Oroolon, another 2019 In-Country Program Fellow, also highlighted that his experience as an educator further motivated him to run and be a voice for young people at decision-making levels.

“The driving force of society is the youth,” Erdenetugs says. “It is clear that we have to participate today to build the society we will live in the future.”

Erdenetugs Oroolon (left) and Jigmeddorj Batbayar (right) — From left to right: LEAD Mongolia In-Country Program Fellows Erdenetugs Oroolon and Jigmeddorj Batbayar

Youth participation across Mongolia is often low. Ganbayar Monkhor, a 2019 alumnus in a CRK in Sukhbaatar aimag, believes this is likely due to a lack of employment opportunities. One of his goals is to increase employment opportunities for young people in rural areas, to empower them and support them in being productive and active members of their communities.

“We also need to seed a dream for youth that together we can create a brighter future,” Ganbayar says.

Another challenge is the need to increase innovative, new methods for resolving community issues instead of solely relying on traditional ones, says Tudevvaanchig Battulga, a 2019 U.S. Exchange Program Fellow from Zavkhan aimag. As a member of his local CRK, Tudevvaanchig wants to introduce new ideas and solutions to his community, such as training local households on waste management to improve environmental protection in public spaces and ger areas.

According to 2020 In-Country Program Fellow Jigmeddorj Batbayar, a CRK representative in Tuv aimag, young people are needed in government because they often develop daring and innovative ideas.

“Democracy is all about civic participation,” he says, adding, “I think that Mongolian youth should be more active and present as creative members of society.”

In regard to why youth often have low voter turnout, Jigmeddorj surmises it is due to a lack of civic education as well as a negative perception of being active in the community. He says, “We need to equip our young generation with knowledge about society and civic participation in various forms, such as programs like LEAD Mongolia.”

In addition, Batzaya Erdenebat, a 2017 alumnus, says corruption can also play a role in keeping young people out of government. He decided to run for office in Bayankhongor aimag because he believes that problems such as bribery and nepotism are worsening and even beginning to be accepted in society. One of his goals is to improve the integrity of the electoral process by eliminating unethical practices such as promising jobs and distributing gifts and cash. Batzaya says these practices make it harder for young people to get elected despite their knowledge and achievements.

Batzaya Erdenebat (left), Yadamjav Delegpuntsag (center), Munkhbat Nergui (right) — From left to right: LEAD Mongolia alumni Batzaya Erdenebat, Yadamjav Delegpuntsag, and Munkhbat Nergui

Relatedly, he stresses that public trust in the government is declining, which he calls the “biggest challenge to democracy.” To counter this, Batzaya says elected representatives need to act transparently, solicit feedback and suggestions from constituents, and be accountable.

2019 alumnus Yadamjav Delegpuntsag was running for a CRK position for the third time, having been elected to the Chingeltei district CRK in Ulaanbaatar in 2012 and 2016, so he was already familiar with his constituents and they with him and his work. Even so, he worked hard to meet as many voters as possible to present his results from his first two terms and share his goals for his third term. He emphasized the importance of working closely with constituents to drive forward policies and projects, and highlighted his success on road, infrastructure, and construction projects in his district during his third campaign. As an elected official, he acknowledged the importance of his constituents putting faith in him to improve their district, and how it is critical to take responsibility and put that trust to good use.

“A lot of people have trusted me with the task of doing a better job, so I thought I shall try harder to bear the trust of these people,” he says.

Of course, these 100 days have been made even more complex by the COVID-19 pandemic. Several alumni noted the challenge of governing during a pandemic, from having online meetings to not being able to go out and meet directly with constituents. Additionally, members of local government are often involved in efforts to combat the virus. Munkhbat notes the hard work that went into the testing and quarantine process for citizens in Selenge, and how it took the efforts of many people working together to successfully contain the spread of COVID-19 in their aimag.

Many are also working to support constituents who are struggling because of the economic impacts of the pandemic. According to Jigmeddorj, “…the number of people facing financial vulnerability [due to COVID-19] is increasing day by day…we have provided assistance to about 200 families in need of food in our ward.”

From left to right: LEAD Mongolia alumni Tudevvaanchig Battulga and Ganbayar Monkhor

LEAD’s focus on civic action planning provides participants with the tools and training to advance both advocacy campaigns and community-driven projects, as well as how to work with diverse groups and ensure inclusive processes for change. The LEAD experience helped motivate alumni in their choice to run, and in bolstering their confidence to be transparent, hard-working, and driven elected officials.

Munkhbat explains that the LEAD program influenced his decision to run for office and still plays a role in how he approaches his work.

“I am incorporating what I learned from the program training, meetings, and other participants into everything we do now, and focus on how to bring positive change in my community,” Munkhbat says.

According to Ganbayar, his experience with LEAD helped him “improve in many ways.” He became more confident and was able look at issues from different perspectives.

Similarly, Soronzonbold says taking part in LEAD helped him build key skills needed to succeed as an elected official.

“I learned how to communicate effectively with people, how to solve problems [by] identifying root causes, and how to achieve good results with participatory projects,” he says, adding, “I am trying to apply what I have learned to my work and everyday life, to set an example for others, and to spread the values of democracy.”

This article was made possible through the translation assistance of World Learning Program Officer Munkhkhishig Dashtseren.

The contents of this article are the responsibility of World Learning and do not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the United States Government.

How LEAD Mongolia Alumni Helped Support Free and Fair National Elections This Summer

LEAD Mongolia alumna Enkhbayar Tumurbaatar works as an election observer in June 2020.

By Meghan Burland, Chief of Party, Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia

Free and fair elections are often considered a hallmark of democracy. Mongolia was no exception to this on June 24, 2020, when 73 percent of registered voters turned out to vote for the 76 members of the State Great Khural, Mongolia’s unicameral parliament, demonstrating their steadfast commitment to citizen participation in spite of COVID-19 social distancing restrictions and severe weather across the country.

Youth played a significant role in the election, with youth voter turnout at 62 percent for voters aged 18 to 25, an increase from the 2016 youth voter turnout of 50.8 percent. This year’s election also featured an unprecedented number of young candidates running for office as well as youth-led nonpartisan citizen election monitoring efforts.

Alumni from World Learning’s Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia program were front and center in election-related activities across the country. As Mongolia prepares for local elections in October 2020, as well as a presidential election next year, LEAD Mongolia and its alumni continue to prioritize increasing young Mongolians’ civic participation and highlighting the work of youth in the country.

Below, four LEAD Mongolia Fellows share their experiences of participating in this year’s important parliamentary election and how their LEAD Mongolia training helped to prepare them.

Erdenetugs Oroolon

LEAD 2019 In-Country Program Fellow Erdenetugs Oroolon, an elementary school teacher, ran for a parliamentary seat as a candidate from the New Party under the New Coalition in the 6th District, which comprises Dundgovi and Govisumber aimags (provinces). Erdenetugs decided to run in February 2020, after changes to the electoral law increased the number of seats in his district from one to two, creating new opportunities for first-time and independent candidates. The December 2019 amendments returned Mongolia to a multi-member plurality system.

“As a young professional, I thought I could use this election period as an opportunity to engage with the public and create [a] base of supporters,” says Erdenetugs.

However, he notes, this year’s election was not without its challenges, including the constraints of Mongolia’s traditional two-party system, allegations of vote-buying, a need for strengthened voter education and awareness, and COVID-19 restrictions. Due to the pandemic, candidates were not able to engage in traditional voter outreach during the three-week campaign period, making it difficult for newer parties and first-time, lesser-known candidates to gain the necessary support to win a seat. Erdenetugs also highlighted local difficulties, such as a drought in Dundgovi aimag, that required many herders to migrate to more remote areas for better land, making it more difficult to reach these voters ahead of Election Day.

Erdenetugs focused his policy platform on three major issues: decreasing allegiance to the two-party system and creating room for new, independent candidates; implementing equal distribution of wealth in compliance with citizens’ constitutional rights; and creating a corruption-free society. Although he did not win a seat, Erdenetugs had a fulfilling experience, having learned more about his own strengths and weaknesses, as well as gaining new perspectives from his fellow citizens on how to improve governance systems. He plans to run again in the next election.

On how his LEAD Mongolia experience helped prepare him for his parliamentary run, Erdenetugs explains he leveraged the civic action planning and grassroots-level advocacy skills learned during his time with the program to better connect with voters. Most importantly, his LEAD experience provided him with the power to “shift [my] perspective and challenge myself.”

Delgerzul Lodoisamba and Orgil Dugersuren

LEAD 2016 U.S. Exchange Program Fellow Delgerzul Lodoisamba and 2019 U.S. Exchange Program Fellow Orgil Dugersuren participated in domestic election observation efforts, organized by local civil society organizations Women for Change, Youth Policy Watch, and the CSO Network for Fair and Just Elections. Prior to this year, both had observed elections through the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE/ODIHR) election observation missions, including for the 2013 and 2017 presidential elections and 2016 parliamentary elections. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic this year, OSCE/ODIHR was unable to deploy a mission, making local civil society observation efforts all the more important.

On June 24, civil society election observers joined observers from political parties and independent candidates at polling stations around Ulaanbaatar. Delgerzul observed during the morning shift, from 6:30 am until 3 pm, while Orgil observed from 3 pm until 1 am, after votes were counted. Both noted how well COVID-19 safety measures were implemented in order not to disrupt the election or discourage voters from showing up to the polls.

As citizens, Delgerzul and Orgil both emphasized the importance of independent election observation efforts to promote transparency and confidence in election results. It is a “great honor,” says Delgerzul, to represent citizens on Election Day and help ensure reliable and fair elections, noting how other LEAD Mongolia Fellows encouraged her to observe this year. For Orgil, he believes citizen participation exemplifies the spirit of democracy and contributes to the further strengthening of Mongolia’s democratic system. However, challenges remain in Mongolia, such as the ability of young, independent candidates to gain equal opportunities; a fluctuating legal environment surrounding elections; and a narrow 21-day window for election campaigns.

Enkhbayar Tumurbaatar

Enkhbayar in her election observer t-shirt.

LEAD 2019 In-Country Program Fellow Enkhbayar Tumurbaatar served as an election observer for the first time, joining the election observation organized by local civil society organizations Women for Change, Youth Policy Watch, and the CSO Network for Fair and Just Elections. Of the overall experience, Enkhbayar says, “it was [a] very interesting and new experience for me to watch the entire election process, how the election law and rules were executed on the ground, the actions of the organizers and other observers that were present.”

In deciding to observe for the first time, Enkhbayar explains that she wanted to understand the electoral system from a new perspective. She adds that, as young person, she wanted to engage and have a meaningful role in the democratic process of her country.

“As a first-time observer, the most rewarding…take-away from me was the fact that I was able to witness and see the reality of the election through my own eyes, rather than hearing about it from someone else or from a media outlet,” she says. “I was humbled and happy to have contributed to the great effort CSOs are making to keep elections fair and right in Mongolia.”

From Enkhbayar’s perspective, the biggest obstacle to running for office in an election is the adversarial element of politics, such as negative campaigning that some parties or candidates may use to bring down the opposition. Running as an independent candidate requires courage, both to campaign without the support of a party and to prepare oneself for political attacks from both opponents and voters. For someone running in a specific political party, the challenge is to demonstrate your capacity to party leadership and prove that you can make substantial contributions to the party. Both of these scenarios can be particularly challenging, sometimes prohibitively, even for LEAD Mongolia alumni, who are “emerging leaders who have the capacity and genuine will to contribute effectively to the development of Mongolia.”

Enkhbayar cites her LEAD Mongolia experience in showing her the importance of civic participation in a democracy, which inspired her to participate as an election observer. Additionally, the strong LEAD alumni network involved in the elections further encouraged her to participate and to gain new knowledge on the electoral process.

. . . .

Overall, all four LEAD Fellows emphasize the importance of youth participation in strengthening Mongolia’s democratic trajectory. As Enkhbayar says, “there is a great need for programs, campaigns, and activities that help demonstrate and have youth feel the real impact and power their participation can bring. A great example of this is the LEAD Mongolia program…if I had not been to LEAD, I would not have understood the importance of my participation.”

As Mongolia prepares for local elections on October 15, Delgerzul highlights how much the younger generation cares about democracy, and how young people are using Facebook and other social media platforms to raise their voices and call for change. Moving forward, Mongolian youth will continue to play a critical role, particularly in civil society efforts to advocate for election reforms, transparency, and increased voter education. As MP candidate Erdenetugs puts it, “people need to be empowered to work hard for their dreams…and fight for the society they want to live in.”

Global UGRAD

Mongolia’s Long Road to Mining Wealth

Opinion/Commentary: International Exchange Programs Benefit Virginia

In Virginia, an International Exchange Program Leaves a Legacy

It’s no surprise that in its short lifespan, the Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia program has driven remarkable change in Mongolia. LEAD fellows, who are the country’s most promising future leaders, are helping children access quality education in remote areas, fighting corruption in their government, and standing up to sexual harassment and domestic abuse.

But the program has also left its mark on communities across Virginia.

It has done so through the power of international exchanges. LEAD Mongolia, funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by World Learning, provides emerging democratic champions with leadership training and civic engagement skills. As part of their training, LEAD fellows visit Virginia and Washington, DC, through exchanges organized in partnership with the University of Virginia (UVA) Center for Politics.

These cross-cultural exchanges provide LEAD fellows and U.S. citizens alike the opportunity to share knowledge and cultivate relationships. Those experiences have lasting results — in many different forms.

Promoting Global Alliances and Stability

LEAD Mongolia fellows observing a Staunton City Council Meeting.

At first glance, it was a city council meeting like any other: Council members discussed local ordinances, recognized a retiring city employee, and listened to constituents’ concerns. But this particular meeting, held last fall in Staunton, Virginia, was more than an exercise in civics — it was an opportunity to shore up democracy in the U.S. and abroad.

LEAD Mongolia participants lined the seats in the back of the meeting room, having come to experience local government and citizen participation in action. “It was an opportunity to witness with my own eyes how the public hearing and city council meeting happens,” says LEAD fellow Enkhbayar Batsukh. “[Mongolia hasn’t] yet developed this culture of civic engagement.”

LEAD Mongolia fellow Dorjgotov Ganbold presenting a gift to the Mayor of Staunton.

Mongolian democracy is young, having emerged in 1990 after a peaceful revolution. LEAD Mongolia fellows are committed to ensuring the longevity of their hard-earned democratic system — and this international exchange helps them do so. They visit places like Montpelier, home President James Madison, father of the U.S. Constitution, to learn how democracy here was founded, and they see how it is sustained today by attending city council meetings and expert talks.

These visits have exponential benefits for the global community, according to Daman Irby, director of global initiatives at the UVA Center for Politics. Democratic countries are among the strongest U.S. allies — and LEAD fellows return home better equipped to advocate for their country’s democratic system. “Our nation benefits when other countries have peace and freedom,” he says. “They’re better trading partners and better friends.”

Staunton Mayor Carolyn Dull, who met with the LEAD Mongolia fellows after the city council meeting, says these exchanges help strengthen U.S. democracy as well by reinforcing the ideals upon which the country was founded and which are enshrined in its Constitution. “To hope for a more perfect union, you’ve got to know each other,” she says. “You can’t stay strangers.”

Building Cross-Cultural Relationships

While global alliances are critical for security and stability, Mayor Dull says there’s great value in building cultural bridges at the individual level as well. “People tend to hate things they don’t know or are afraid of,” she says, noting that LEAD provided a rare and valuable occasion for Staunton residents to meet people from Mongolia and learn about its culture.

LEAD Mongolia fellows during their visit to the University of Virginia.

That is by design. Throughout all its international exchange programming — which includes several other programs in partnership with World Learning — the UVA Center for Politics creates ample opportunities for Charlottesville-area residents to connect with visitors, who attend bluegrass festivals, football games, rodeos. Irby even recalls taking a group of South Asian visitors to a fiddlers’ convention, where they immediately bonded with locals who were camping out on the convention grounds.

“Inevitably when you get people together, it’s impossible not to develop a greater understanding of the other people,” Irby says. “If nothing else, just seeing that they are, in fact, people.” When people meet LEAD fellows, he adds, they come to understand Mongolia beyond Genghis Khan and nomadic farmers.

And, sometimes, they even develop lasting connections. Irby recalls a recent dinner at the Barbeque Exchange in Gordonsville, Virginia. He was surprised that night when chef Craig Hartman came out of the kitchen to thank him for bringing a group of 30 LEAD fellows to the restaurant months before. Hartman told Irby that he was still in touch with some of the Mongolian visitors on Twitter and Facebook. “They really are conn

The Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind.

ecting with the community,” Irby says.

For others, hosting international visitors may be their first exposure to a larger world. Patricia Trice, superintendent of the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind (VSDB), says visits from LEAD fellows are good for her students, most in grades K-12, , who often face exclusion and thus are behind socially and in world knowledge. VSDB teachers point out Mongolia on the map and talk a little about the country before LEAD fellows come to visit. “Some [students] still may not understand that concept,” Trice says. “But it’s still giving them a sense that this is someone who doesn’t live here. It just broadens their horizons.”

Sharing Best Practices

Exchange programs also provide a platform for people in both the nonprofit and the business community to share best practices, build their networks, and advance their interests globally.

The LEAD Mongolia fellows pose for a group shot at the Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind.

VSDB, for example, often receives requests from people around the world wishing to tour its facilities such as the independent living apartments, where students learn life skills like paying bills and preparing meals. Trice says it’s only natural to accommodate these requests as information-sharing is critical to improvement. In fact, she also sends her administrative team to schools in other states to learn about how they’re implementing new practices.

“We’re all about giving back to the field and we feel like we have a lot to share,” Trice says. “For countries where their services for disabilities are minimal, if none, we want to be able to try to help increase their services and see what we can share with them.”

Six guests from the deaf and hard-of-hearing community participate in a live debate on Mongol TV titled “Silent Discussion.”

In Mongolia, that has already made a difference. LEAD fellows have become outspoken advocates for deaf education in a country that has only one school for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. In 2017, Mongolian students erupted in protest over their teachers’ refusal to use sign language in class. Lkhagva Erdene, a LEAD fellow and executive news producer at Mongol TV, moderated a live panel debate about the issue. It was the country’s first public debate on sign language. Then, last year, Tuul Batsuren, a LEAD fellow and teacher at the school, helped her students rally yet again to replace their useless emergency system — a ringing bell — with a system of lights.

Stories like that are rewarding for Trice. “It makes you feel like all the work you put into your school helped somebody else,” she says. “That’s what it’s all about. Everybody’s got the same goal. So, I’m like, gosh, don’t keep anything secret. What do I have that you could use and what do you have that I could use?”

These exchanges help Trice and her staff improve services for VSDB’s international student population by giving them insight into the resources (or lack thereof) their students may have had prior to enrolling. “It’s hard for us to understand a student not having access to education,” she says. “Not just being able to go to school, but having a program that’s fully accessible for people with disabilities.” That insight can help them better meet those students’ needs.

Economic Benefits and Beyond

Virginia reaps even more benefits from international exchange programs. Tourism is a major industry in the state, which houses some of the nation’s most treasured historic sites including the homes of several of Founding Fathers. According to the Virginia Tourism Corporation, in 2017, the state’s tourism revenues reached $25 billion, which supported 232,000 jobs, $5.9 billion in salaries and wages, and $1.73 billion in state and local taxes.

Though LEAD Mongolia may account for only a small fraction of that revenue, Irby maintains that the program has a real impact on local businesses. It supports local restaurants like the Barbeque Exchange as well as hotels in Charlottesville, Virginia Beach, and beyond. LEAD fellows also get plenty of time to shop for souvenirs, clothing, and other items.

People and organizations across Virginia seem to appreciate their engagement. Irby says groups rarely turn him down when he asks if he can bring a sizable group of Mongolian professionals to visit with them. Not only is the UVA Center for Politics well known and respected across the state, but he says people are also fascinated by the opportunity to meet visitors from Mongolia.

That, ultimately, is why World Learning and the UVA Center for Politics plan to continue to cultivate international exchanges: People everywhere have so much to learn about one another and the world. When people get to know each other, good things happen.

LEAD Alliance Summit Brings Together Mongolia’s Next Generation of Leaders

World Learning Launches Virtual Tours Exploring Careers Around the Globe

Bayarmaa Lkhagvador (right), a renewable energy engineer walks through a solar farm in Mongolia.

Imagine stepping into the shoes of a teacher at Mongolia’s only school for deaf students, or an engineer working to find a solution to air pollution — without leaving your home.

Now’s your chance to do just that. Working with a team at Google, World Learning is launching a series of virtual reality tours designed to help young people explore the careers and daily lives of professionals all over the world. On these self-guided tours, you’ll learn how professionals built their careers, the challenges they face, and what skills they need to do their jobs well.

Virtual career tours make it possible for many more young people to gain exposure to real-world work environments. These tours show students the many ways they can apply their skills professionally and offer them insight into what working life is like. “Virtual reality is just beginning to open up new possibilities for learning and experiencing the world,” says Dr. Catherine Honeyman, Senior Youth Workforce Specialist at World Learning. “What I love about these virtual career tours is how they help us get beyond the limitations of our social relationships — you don’t have to personally know an energy engineer to visit her workplace. She has already invited you to come have a look just by using your phone!”

First up, we’re headed to Mongolia to shadow the careers of a few of our fellows from the Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia program. LEAD Mongolia is a USAID-funded program administered by World Learning that works to build the next generation of democracy champions through leadership, international exchange, and civic education activities. LEAD Mongolia fellows also work on civic action projects addressing critical issues like unemployment.

These tours can be viewed on any ordinary smartphone or laptop — no special equipment is required. For a fully immersive experience, drop your phone into an inexpensive VR viewer (like the Google Cardboard viewer) and explore the scene just by turning your head!

Career Expedition: Renewable Energy Engineer
Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action, Ministry of Construction and Urban Development
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Click to explore a career as a renewable energey engineer in Mongolia!

Bayarmaa Lkhagvadorj is an engineer from Mongolia who believes renewable energies are the way of the future. Travel with her through Mongolia to see the effects of the air pollution caused by burning coal. Go with her to a massive solar field to learn how solar panels work, and find out how Lkhagvadorj works with a local research center to provide evidence-based recommendations for stronger environmental policies.

Career Expedition: Training Manager
Wagner Asia Equipment LLC
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Click to explore a career as a training manager in Mongolia!

Follow a day in the life of Khunshagai Baldorj, a training manager at Wagner Asia, a company that provides products and services to the mining, construction, infrastructure, and energy sectors. Find out how she helps employees build their skills through training opportunities, and how she’s provided job training to unemployed Mongolians through her work as chair of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility Committee.

Career Expedition: Teaching at a School for Deaf Children
School #29
Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Click to explore a career as a teacher at a School for Deaf Children in Mongolia!

Meet Tuul Batsuren, a history teacher at School #29 — the only school in Mongolia for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Join Batsuren, who is deaf, in her classroom as she plans lessons and teaches class in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. Then visit her office at the nongovernmental organization that she founded to advocate for her students’ rights to a quality education.

A Day in the Life of a LEAD Mongolia Exchange

Democracy is best understood when you see it in action. Last fall, the Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia Program brought a group of up-and-coming democracy advocates to the United States for a three-week exchange program in which they explored the country’s democratic values and discovered how they can work together to address critical issues such as poverty and unemployment, the environment and urbanization, and transparency and anti-corruption.

LEAD Mongolia, which is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by World Learning, aims to support Mongolia’s young democracy by providing its next generation of champions with opportunities to make a difference. LEAD fellows design civic action projects in their communities, encourage civic engagement among high school students, and share their insight into the workings of democracy with other leaders in Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar.

The U.S. exchange is one important component of the LEAD Mongolia program, offering fellows firsthand experience with U.S. democracy. During their three weeks in the country, fellows take part in lectures and workshops, explore U.S. culture, and begin work on their civic action projects. A portion of the program is hosted by the University of Virginia Center for Politics in Charlottesville, Virginia.

LEAD Mongolia fellows Enkhbayar Batsukh (left), a local government employee who specializes in private sector development and Nyamdemberel Dorj (right), a civil society activist.

World Learning accompanied this year’s group in Charlottesville to find out what a day in the life of a LEAD Mongolia exchange is like. Two of the fellows — Enkhbayar Batsukh, a local government employee who specializes in private sector development, and Nyamdemberel Dorj, a civil society activist — checked in with us throughout the day to share their thoughts on everything from teambuilding to making education and employment accessible to people with disabilities.

8 a.m. Teambuilding and Leadership Training
Poplar Ridge Challenge Course at the University of Virginia

A LEAD Mongolia fellow navigates the ropes course at the Poplar Ridge Challenge Course.

LEAD Mongolia participants started the day with teamwork. At the Poplar Ridge Challenge Course, they helped one another cross a shaky high wire by using ropes to hold it taut and shouting encouragement. In another exercise, they worked together to balance nearly a dozen people on a small wooden plank without tipping over. Ultimately, the fellows learned how to solve problems through trust, communication, and leadership. These skills will be essential for when they return to Mongolia to work on projects together addressing some of the country’s most pressing issues.

Batsukh said she’s participated in teambuilding activities before, but none quite like this one: “I was very nervous, to be honest. When I was climbing the stairs, I wanted to give up. It was totally out of my comfort zone. But I pushed myself and started walking to the rope, and then I felt a little relieved and confident like I conquered my internal fear. I noticed that my friends who were pulling the rope [taut] to help me were really doing an active job. I felt a lot safer with them. I’m not doing it alone.”

1 p.m. Employing People with Disabilities
Vector Industries in Waynesboro, Virginia

LEAD Mongolia fellows visit Vector Industries to learn about how they help create employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

After lunch, the LEAD fellows drove about 30 miles west to Waynesboro, Virginia, where they learned how Vector Industries has created employment opportunities for people with disabilities. Vector Industries is a nonprofit that works with manufacturers across the region to provide assembly, packaging, fulfillment, and other logistical support. It employs people with disabilities, even providing them with transportation to get to and from work.

In Mongolia, unemployment is a serious challenge, particularly among people with disabilities. One LEAD Mongolia team will be tasked with finding a solution to alleviate this unemployment crisis as part of their civic action projects, but all of the fellows were excited to learn about the Vector Industries model. “I was amazed by how [Vector Industries] started by just going out door to door and trying to find a job for people,” Dorj said. “That was an amazing story to hear.”

Batsukh agreed, adding that there’s no such nonprofit in her community even though it includes more than 5,000 citizens with disabilities. “I feel that the factory is working in very smart ways,” she said. “We don’t have any working conditions for the disabled community at all. I looked at them and I had the great idea: In the coming years, if our overall development is going well, why couldn’t we organize a factory in our community like this one?”

2:30 p.m. Public Education Option for the Deaf and Blind
Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Staunton, Virginia

Next, the LEAD fellows headed further west to the city of Staunton, where they discovered how the state provides public education to students with disabilities at the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind. During a tour of the campus, LEAD fellows learned about how the school is technically also a state agency. It provides comprehensive services and support to students with disabilities, offering transportation to young people across the state, employing staff and faculty members with disabilities, creating equal bilingual classrooms using both American Sign Language and English, and offering worksite experience programs.

Students can shop for household goods as part of the school’s independent living program.

LEAD fellows were particularly amazed by the school’s independent living program, in which students live in on-campus apartments for nine-week periods to help them learn how to pay their bills, shop for groceries, prepare meals, and more. “When we think of training disabled people, we always think of how to help them read and write but never how they will live independently,” Batsukh said.

Dorj was inspired by his visit to the school, which gave him a new vision for the future of education in Mongolia. “The independent living dorm was very inspiring,” he said. “I think we can apply it not only for visually impaired people but in other places and for people with other disabilities.”

7:30 p.m. Civic Engagement: Staunton City Council Meeting
Staunton, Virginia

LEAD fellows ended the day by attending a Staunton City Council meeting to witness U.S. local government and citizen engagement in action. Mayor Carolyn W. Dull led the meeting, which included discussion of public ordinances and the council’s vision for 2035 as well as opportunities for citizens to weigh in on various issues such as the petition to change the name of a local high school. Two of the LEAD participants spoke as well, thanking the council members and American citizens alike for allowing them to attend the meeting.

Batsukh was grateful for the opportunity to witness local democracy at work and was impressed with what she saw: “The lady beside me, she was a regular citizen from Staunton. I asked her if she always comes to these meetings and she said, ‘Yes, I do come because I want to know what’s going on in the city from different points of view. Not only from the city council members but from the other citizens that are concerned.’ It’s making all people informed and that’s very, very important.”

9 p.m. Head back to Charlottesville!

The LEAD Mongolia fellows on the University of Virginia campus.

LEAD Mongolia fellows returned to the University of Virginia campus to rest up for the remainder of their three-week exchange, which included lectures on civil liberties and contemporary American politics, workshops on civic action planning, and much more. While Dorj was looking forward to all the activities to follow in the coming weeks, he said he already had gained so much from the international exchange — and his team had already begun sharing ideas for their civic action project tackling poverty and unemployment. “We’re inspired by what we are learning here.”

In Mongolia, Project Citizen Empowers High Schoolers to Change Their Communities

In democracies the world over, civic education in schools is seen as a critical rite of passage to citizenship. We prepare young people to get involved in their communities, hold leaders accountable, vote, emerge as leaders themselves, and someday assume the helm of democracy. But this only works when we provide them opportunities to put these democratic norms into practice.

In Mongolia’s capitol of Ulaanbaatar, a team of students at School #29 — the country’s one-and-only school for deaf and hard of hearing students — is showing us what democracy is made of: engagement, dialogue, and an insistence that better things are possible. Working together, these students persuaded their school and the Mongolian government to install a lighting system to alert students to emergencies.

School 29 student and Batsuren (in red) pose with President of Mongolia Khaltmaagiin Battulga following his opening remarks at the Project Citizen National Competition.

The students were involved in Project Citizen — an interactive methodology used in 60 countries worldwide. The premise for Project Citizen is simple: identify an issue that’s important to your school or community, research the issue, suggest a solution, and carry out a project that will address this issue. In other words, it makes civic engagement real and achievable for students.

The initiative was introduced as part of World Learning’s USAID-funded Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia Program, which is cultivating the country’s next generation of democracy advocates. World Learning partnered with Center for Citizenship Education (CCE) — one of country’s oldest NGOs established during Mongolia’s transition to democracy — to introduce Project Citizen at high schools across the country.

Students at School 29 say: nothing about us without us

School 29 is one of 70 schools that participated in Project Citizen this past year.

Tuul Batsuren, a history teacher at School 29 who introduced the initiative, says these skills are especially important for her students because the deaf and hard of community is rarely given a voice in Mongolia. Deaf students are not integrated into Mongolia’s general education scheme and struggle to secure the resources they need.

Batsuren, who is deaf and also a LEAD Mongolia fellow, hopes Project Citizen can change all of this and give her students the voice they need to be active citizens and equal contributors.

About 20 students came together to form the Project Citizen team. Their work began with a school-wide survey to determine the top concerns of students at School 29. One of those concerns was the fact that the school and student dormitories used a traditional bell system to alert students to emergencies or the end of class. But students at School 29 can’t hear the bell, forcing teachers to tell students one by one when to attend class, where to go, or if there was an emergency.

The Project Citizen team quickly went to work to research their rights and the resources they would need to fix the problem. They gained community support and met with government officials and international organizations to demand a change.

Their efforts were rewarded. Tuul and her students convinced the Ministry of Education, Culture, Science and Sports to commit 10 million Mongolian Tughrik (3,880 USD) to fund a new lighting system to replace the bell system. National television stations also featured the students, allowing them to raise awareness among thousands of Mongolians about the barriers faced by students with disabilities.

It has already made a difference.

“We are so happy to have this light signal in our dorm now,” says Nandin-Erdene, a ninth grader at School 29 who has lived in the dormitories for eight years and participated in Project Citizen. “Everything became much easier for us.”

If we want to change the world, start with high schoolers

Tuul Batsuren teaches a history class at School 29. She has been teaching here for 11 years and was a student of School 29 herself.

Mongolia, as one of the youngest countries in the world, with young people ages 14 to 34 comprising 35 percent of the population, is an especially important place to teach youth about civic engagement. Faced with rising unemployment, corruption and fast-growing discontent with their country’s political climate, Mongolia’s young people are increasingly less optimistic about democracy and less likely to engage in civic or community work to combat these challenges.

For Dr. Narangerel Rinchin — executive director of CCE and a long-standing democracy advocate — the remedy to this is placing the practices of civic engagement directly into the hands of those young people. “If we want to make a positive change in Mongolia, we start with the young people,” she says.

She argues that the most effective way to compel younger people into civic life is to not simply teach civic responsibility but give them to space to act on it. Allowing students to carry out civic action projects based around their own interests offers those young people an opportunity to understand the democracy in which they live — and instills confidence that democracy works. It also provides a constructive approach to understanding the much more complex issues they hear about every day in the news.

This is exactly what Project Citizen achieves.

Rinchin, who has been involved in Mongolian civic life for three decades since the country’s peaceful transition from authoritarian rule to democracy, first introduced Project Citizen at 25 schools in Ulaanbaatar in 1997. Under the LEAD program in 2018, Project Citizen involved 70 schools from 11 different provinces, and will involve up to 100 schools this upcoming year with support from USAID.

“Project Citizen is a program which adds to students’ knowledge, enhances their skills, and deepens their understanding of how ‘the people’ — all of us — can work together to make our communities better,” Rinchin says. “For young people to carry forward the traditions of democracy, teaching civic education at all levels of primary and second education is vitally important.”

Democracy is more than a set of ideals, it’s about action

Were it not for Project Citizen, School #29 would still have in place a bell system that was at best impractical and, at worst, dangerous. Now, though, students feel empowered to create a positive change in their school and community.

Students applaud in sign language at Project Citizen competition in Ulaanbaatar. As part of Project Citizen, participating schools from across Mongolia compete for prizes to support their project ideas.

“I am so proud to see that the students learned how to identify a problem and how to act on it after being part of Project Citizen,” Batsuren says, adding that the experience was about so much more than building practical project skills. For Batsuren, it was about allowing the students to see first-hand how they can take charge in their community and make a difference.

Sarantuya, the principal of School #29, says she has seen a change in the students. “Ever since [they participated in Project Citizen], the students have become more vocal, active and empowered to do more,” she says.

Their work has received national recognition. The team won second place in the Project Citizen National Competition in April among the 12 teams that qualified. At the competition, President of Mongolia Kh.Battulga praised initiatives such as this one. “The main purpose of this project is for students to bring up issues and challenges they face at their schools and in their communities through extensive research, develop plans based on relevant laws and regulations, and then propose it to decision-makers to solve it together,” he said. “This is what we want to see happen.”

The project also taught students at School #29 that democracy works — especially when you get involved in civic life. As one participant, Nandin-Erdene, says, “We were so happy that our idea could became reality.”

Watch Project Citizen in action at School 29 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia:

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. World Learning and CCE partnered under the LEAD Mongolia activity beginning in late 2016 and will continue to offer Project Citizen through 2021 thanks to the support of USAID. CCE first introduced the methodology in 1997 in collaboration with the California Center for Civic Education which developed Project Citizen to promote competent and responsible participation in local and state government. It was funded by the U.S. Department of Education.

Across Asia, Young Changemakers look to Mongolia to Lead

This fall, young leaders in Mongolia will join together with some of the most inspired up-and-coming changemakers in Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar to make change in their communities and the wider region.

The Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia program is seeking applicants to join LEAD Alliance, which brings together Mongolian democracy advocates with their peers from Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar — three countries which are eager to learn from the Mongolian experience.

Why Mongolia?

People across Asia look to the country as a realistic model of how to achieve a peaceful transition to democracy.

Mongolia’s peaceful democratic revolution began in the winter of 1989 with young people demonstrating in Ulaanbaatar’s famous Sukhbaatar Square. And while Mongolia still has many challenges of its own to overcome — rising poverty and unemployment, environmental degradation, corruption — Mongolia’s young people continue to carry forward the legacy that began nearly three decades ago.

In short, Mongolia and its new generation of leaders have a lot to offer.

LEAD Mongolia, funded by USAID and implemented by World Learning, is cultivating the country’s next generation of democracy advocates. Participants, known as LEAD Mongolia Fellows, are a diverse contingent of the country’s most promising up-and-coming changemakers. Together, they work on projects to address Mongolia’s most critical challenges.

“The experience has [taught] me to see the bigger picture of the current political and social situations,” says LEAD Mongolia fellow Lkh.Khandsuren. “I realized that we should guard our democracy as a super precious treasure, because it comes with so much sacrifice.”

Since early 2017, they’ve also gone on to share their experiences as changemakers with their peers across the region as part of the LEAD Alliance. LEAD Mongolia partnered with the International Republic Institute (IRI) to introduce the LEAD Alliance, in which LEAD Mongolia Fellows serve as mentors to other young emerging leaders in Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar. LEAD Mongolia fellows help LEAD Alliance fellows implement projects in their countries. Fellows from both programs also gather for collaboration and networking at an annual summit in Ulaanbaatar.

“For me, the LEAD Alliance has been a really great platform to be able to meet and learn, collaborate and be inspired by so many different individuals from so many different backgrounds,” says Rabsel Dorj, a LEAD Alliance fellow from Bhutan. “We all share a very common passion for community development and promoting democratic ideals in their own country.”

World Learning and IRI are recruiting for emerging leaders ages 25 to 40 from Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, or Myanmar to apply through October 27, 2018. Check out LEAD Alliance and apply today.

Want to read more about the LEAD Alliance projects that have taken place in Bhutan, Kyrgyzstan, and Myanmar? Check out these stories:

For One Group of Young Kyrgyz Leaders, Leadership Starts with Inclusion

A New Generation of Active Citizens in Rural Myanmar

In the Kingdom of Bhutan, Learning to Value the Environment

Explore Argentina or Mongolia by Horseback with The Experiment

Meet Mongolia’s Changemakers

A new documentary Meet the Changemakers showcases the work, ambitions, and dreams of Mongolia’s next generation of leaders who are embracing social inclusion at every turn.

To become a true changemaker, you also have to be an inclusion advocate. Just as democracy cannot thrive without equality, change cannot take root without an effort to include as many voices as possible.

In Mongolia, a group of up-and-coming democracy advocates are putting their ideas for social inclusion into action.

They’re featured in a new short film, Meet the Changemakers, which tells the stories of seven Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia Fellows who share a passion for making the world a more inclusive place. This leadership development program — funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by World Learning — brings together young advocates, representing different perspectives and fields of practice, to take part in training, leadership opportunities, international exchanges, and opportunities to implement community projects.

LEAD Mongolia Fellows Ariunsanaa Batsaikhan (left) and Enkhjin Selenge (right).

Through participating in the program, LEAD Fellows come to fully understand the importance of inclusion. In their work, they’re exploring how inclusive practices help to reach more people and learning how to ensure the results of their work are accessible to more people, particularly those from disadvantaged and excluded groups.

“Before participating in this program, I barely knew what social inclusion was,” says Enkhjin Selenge, a marketing specialist who is featured in the film for his work with other LEAD Fellows on a documentary examining the issue of unemployment and exclusion. The team itself was composed of leaders from deaf advocacy and LGBT rights groups, from rural as well as urban areas. Selenge says that diversity made the project better: “LEAD made me think differently. I realized we can be stronger when we’re a diverse team and include everyone. If we want to develop our country, we have to be inclusive of everyone. There’s no other choice.”

LEAD Mongolia Fellows shoot a scene for their documentary, Meet the Changemakers.

Meet the Changemakers also tells the story of how emerging changemakers have come to see Mongolia’s democratic future inextricably linked to the pursuit of equality.

While democracy does not guarantee equality, it does provide opportunities to pursue equality. It is up to the citizens who make up a democracy to use that opportunity to act and seek solutions in the pursuit of progress and social inclusion.

In Mongolia, this demands confronting a number of important questions: How are women and girls continually impacted by poor access to justice? How are disabled young people impacted differently by Mongolia’s unemployment challenges? How is the Kazakh minority in Mongolia impacted differently by quality of education concerns? LEAD Fellows are working to address these questions because they realize that Mongolia’s development challenges — whether it be poverty, corruption, or the environment — cannot truly be addressed unless everyone’s voices are included, especially those who are not normally given an equal voice.

“My understanding is that there are many that did not have equal starting points and do not have access and opportunities,” says LEAD Fellow Ganchimeg Namsrai, a women’s empowerment advocate and senior researcher at the Press Institute of Mongolia.

Watch Meet the Changemakers below, and learn how Namsrai, Selenge, and their colleagues are addressing inclusion, each in their own unique way:

‘Meet the Changemakers’ reflects on LEAD Mongolia’s experience piloting the World Learning-led Transforming Agency, Access, and Power (TAAP) Initiative, a systematic approach to integrating inclusion throughout a project’s lifecycle by “tapping” into the voices, skills, and experiences of all people, including those marginalized and excluded from power. LEAD Mongolia is the first project to employ the TAAP approach, which seeks to ensure that participants have the skills to become practitioners of inclusive development. In the film, seven LEAD fellows share their program experiences, their work and future aspirations, as well as their thoughts about social inclusion. It is the story of how TAAP came to life in Mongolia — and holds the promise to support inclusion champions the world over.

Read more about the LEAD Fellows featured in Meet the Changemakers in the following profiles published in the Mongolian media:

Munkhbat Nergui [News.mn]

Ariunzul Liijuu [News.mn and Ikon]

Ganchimeg Namsrai [News.mn]

Written by Adam LeClair, Project Director, Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia

Learn How This Mongolian Activist Is Making the World a More Inclusive Place

Ariunzul Liijuu-Ochir believes all children have a right to a quality education. As a civil society activist and Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongoliafellow, she’s doing her part to make sure they can access that education.

In 2016, Liijuu-Ochir traveled to a rural village about 300 kilometers from the provincial center of Bayan-Ulgii, the westernmost province of Mongolia and the country’s only Muslim and Kazakh-minority province. Her intent was to collect data and develop recommendations to improve quality of education for public officials. This is a remote area where no one goes, but Liijuu-Ochir and her colleagues were intent on including all voices.

What she found was poor teaching quality and considerable language barriers with little-to-no materials available in Kazakh. “The children are at a disadvantage because they’re not taught in their own language,” she explains. Bayan-Ulgii is consistently listed last among Mongolia’s 21 provinces in quality of education.

Liijuu-Ochir clearly remembers how one young girl from the village raised her hand during the visit and thanked her. “She said no one has come to talk to them before to ask their opinions. So she was thanking me even though I didn’t do anything. People just want to be recognized.”

Liijuu-Ochir (in yellow) at a workshop with All for Education, Mongolia’s leading network of civil society organizations committed to advancing inclusive education. She and her colleagues discuss how to ensure inclusion of vulnerable communities.

Next month, Liijuu-Ochir’s work will be recognized in a new documentary called Meet the Changemakers, which tells the stories of seven LEAD Mongolia fellows who share a passion for making the world a more inclusive place. The USAID-funded and World Learning-implemented program offers training, leadership development, and international exchange opportunities for up-and-coming democracy advocates in Mongolia. Social inclusion is one of the values at the core of the program.

Liijuu-Ochir, who has been fighting for children’s rights to quality education for 10 years, has long believed in inclusion. In 2014, Liijuu-Ochir founded the Parent-Teachers Association of Mongolia to get parents involved and advocating for quality of education, which is a new concept in Mongolia. She started off big, trying to get as many parents involved as possible. But she quickly narrowed in on a real need, focusing on parents of children with disabilities and the Kazakh community, whose voices were clearly underrepresented in conversations about education.

Liijuu-Ochir’s work to improve inclusive education has been met with a lot of pushback. Often, she explains, schools don’t want to cooperate, and government officials are resistant to change. On top of that, prevailing stigma against Kazakh minority children, children with disabilities, and others keeps them on the sidelines, unable to access the same education as their peers.

This makes the fight for inclusive education a particularly tough one. “It’s really difficult to change people’s minds,” she adds, referring to her work to address the educational needs of Kazakh children. What she wants to see is equal investment in these schools and a recognition of dual language education. But most people are against it.

As Liijuu-Ochir explains it, many people believe that Kazakhs aren’t really Mongolian and question why they’re in the country at all. At the same time, the Kazakh community has remained reticent to engage in community life. Negative attitudes prevail on both sides.

This is not easy to overcome. But, Liijuu-Ochir believes excluding children will only harm Mongolian society in the future. “We will pay the price one way or another,” she says. “We need to raise children who will be equal contributors in society. If we don’t include them as children, then we have no hope.”

Though Liijuu-Ochir has long been a champion of inclusion, she discovered even more about it through her LEAD Mongolia experience. Alongside a group of 10 other budding anti-corruption advocates, Liijuu-Ochir worked on a transparency project that employed the principles of social inclusion. Their Transparent and Accountable School project set out to rebuild trust between the schools and community of Ulaanbaatar’s Nalaikh District, an underserved area on the outskirts of the city with a sizable Kazakh population.

Transparency hinges on the concept of inclusion: by bringing all voices into discussions about systems of governance, society can root out corruption and hold leaders accountable.

Liijuu-Ochir and the team wanted to provide a platform for teachers, parents, and students to get involved and to realize they have the power to do something about corruption. The intent was to build transparency and trust through public participation in school planning, budgeting, and other processes. During the project planning process, though, the team started to realize they were excluding some stakeholders. “The materials we developed didn’t incorporate children with disabilities,” she says. “Blind children, for example. But we learned as we went, always figuring out where we should be more inclusive.”

Liijuu-Ochir leads a workshop on rights-based approaches to education.

She and the team made sure everyone at all levels of the school — principal to janitor — was encouraged to take part. This is an unusual approach in Mongolia. “The project adopted inclusion in a very unexpected way,” Liijuu-Ochir says. “It seems this really made an impact on people.”

It had an effect on Liijuu-Ochir as well. “Before LEAD, I thought I knew everything about inclusion, but in fact I did not,” she says. “LEAD definitely broadened my understanding of inclusion.”

Whatever the challenges, Liijuu-Ochir will continue her campaign for inclusive education. Her experience working with other LEAD Fellows from different backgrounds has fueled her passion. “After LEAD, my network of friends has grown,” she says. “Now I see great potential in collaborating with them and moving forward as one.”

In this trailer for Meet the Changemakers, Liijuu-Ochir explains the importance of promoting social inclusion:

Meet the Changemakers reflects on LEAD Mongolia’s experience piloting the World Learning-led Transforming Agency, Access, and Power (TAAP) Initiative, a systematic approach to integrating inclusion throughout a project’s lifecycle by “tapping” into the voices, skills, and experiences of all people, including those marginalized and excluded from power. LEAD Mongolia is the first project to employ the TAAP approach, which seeks to ensure that participants have the skills to become practitioners of inclusive development. In the film, seven LEAD fellows share their program experiences, as well as their thoughts about social inclusion. It is the story of how TAAP came to life in Mongolia — and holds the promise to support inclusion champions the world over.

Written by Adam LeClair, Project Director, Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD) Mongolia

Mongolia

World Learning and USAID Launch New Program to Support Democratic Development in Mongolia

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has awarded World Learning a new $2.5 million Mongolian Young Leaders Program. Secretary of State John Kerry announced the program during his June 5 visit to Ulaanbaatar. It supports U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia Jennifer Zimdahl Galt’s initiative to help build the country’s next generation of democratic leaders.

World Learning will lead the two-year program in partnership with non-profit organizations from both Mongolia and the United States —the Center for Citizenship Education and the International Republican Institute. The Mongolian Young Leaders Program will support promising young leaders from the public, civil society, media, and private sectors to work collaboratively on key policy issues related to environment and urbanization, unemployment and poverty alleviation, and anti-corruption and transparency. Through leadership programs and international exchanges, participants will interact with colleagues within Mongolia and counterparts from the United States and selected Asian countries. The program will also encourage public engagement among high school students by providing new civic education materials to teachers and sponsoring Project Citizen competitions in which students take action to improve their schools and communities.

“Mongolia’s nearly 25 years of peaceful democracy provide hope for countries struggling with authoritarian pasts,” said Carol Jenkins, president for Global Development and Exchange at World Learning. “World Learning and our partners are proud to support a new generation of democratic champions to continue this legacy.”

World Learning is an international non-profit organization working to promote leadership, empower people and strengthen institutions in over 75 countries through education, development and exchange programs. It has been active in Mongolia since 2000 through its Experiment in International Living, SIT Study Abroad programs, and international exchanges.

World Learning Launches Project in Support of Mongolia’s Young, Emerging Leaders

World Learning is proud to officially launch its new Leaders Advancing Democracy (LEAD)-Mongolia Program in partnership with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). LEAD-Mongolia is introduced to support U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia Jennifer Zimdahl Galt’s initiative to support the country’s next generation of democratic leaders. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry previously announced this program during his visit to Mongolia on June 5, 2016 as he encouraged young Mongolian leaders to use their voice to further their country’s democratic efforts.

The launch event took place on September 21, 2016 in Ulaanbaatar to celebrate the program’s inauguration and encourage interested emerging leaders to apply.

“We’re honored to partner with USAID on this important initiative,” says World Learning President, Carol Jenkins. “Our project creates a partnership whereby Mongolia’s best and brightest emerging leaders are given a unique opportunity to breathe life into their own vision of positive change. This is accomplished through a variety of leadership programs, international exchanges, and civic education activities.” Carol Jenkins traveled from Washington, DC to attend the event and make remarks alongside U.S. Ambassador to Mongolia Jennifer Zimdahl Galt.

Over the next two years, LEAD-Mongolia will work with 90 emerging leaders from a variety of sectors, connect Mongolian emerging leaders with counterparts in the region, and develop a civic education curriculum for teachers at the high-school level. World Learning is working together with non-profit partners International Republican Institute (IRI) and Center for Citizenship Education (CCE) to achieve these goals.

“We want emerging leaders aged 25 to 40 with enthusiasm and a unique vision for positive change,” explains LEAD Project Director, Adam LeClair. “We’re keen to support the next generation of change agents whose leadership will combat indifference and forge a common vision for the successful democratic trajectory of their country. We also encourage emerging leaders from all paths of life to apply. That’s is why we’ve spoken to organizations representing diverse populations and interests including youth groups, policy advocates, gender-focused groups, disabled persons organizations, LGBTI rights groups, and others.”

World Learning is an international non-profit organization working to promote leadership, empower people and strengthen institutions in over 75 countries through education, development, and exchange programs. It has been active in Mongolia since 2000 through its Experiment in International Living, SIT Study Abroad programs, and international exchanges.

Program Areas

Our Approach

Why Inclusion Matters

TAAP In Practice

Inclusive Development from Start to Finish: The LEAD Mongolia Experience

The Legacy of LEAD

Erdenetugs Oroolon

Delgerzul Lodoisamba and Orgil Dugersuren

Enkhbayar Tumurbaatar

Promoting Global Alliances and Stability

Building Cross-Cultural Relationships

Sharing Best Practices

Economic Benefits and Beyond

LEAD Mongolia fellows Enkhbayar Batsukh (left), a local government employee who specializes in private sector development and Nyamdemberel Dorj (right), a civil society activist.

8 a.m. Teambuilding and Leadership Training Poplar Ridge Challenge Course at the University of Virginia

1 p.m. Employing People with Disabilities Vector Industries in Waynesboro, Virginia

2:30 p.m. Public Education Option for the Deaf and Blind Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Staunton, Virginia

7:30 p.m. Civic Engagement: Staunton City Council Meeting Staunton, Virginia

9 p.m. Head back to Charlottesville!

Students at School 29 say: nothing about us without us

If we want to change the world, start with high schoolers

Democracy is more than a set of ideals, it’s about action

8 a.m. Teambuilding and Leadership Training
Poplar Ridge Challenge Course at the University of Virginia

1 p.m. Employing People with Disabilities
Vector Industries in Waynesboro, Virginia

2:30 p.m. Public Education Option for the Deaf and Blind
Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind in Staunton, Virginia

7:30 p.m. Civic Engagement: Staunton City Council Meeting
Staunton, Virginia