February Conference 2008 - Agenda Items

From Greg

- Secure livelihoods in (peri urban / ger districts of) UB and future / continuity of construction education projects (whether business and/or educational)

- Programme links between Education and Secure Livelihoods (also Health and national volunteering?)

- Accessibility in construction and education / accessible design, VSO mainstreaming disability / independent living. VSO Mongolia sharing experience internationally, eg. Bishrel

From Rob

-role secure livelihoods in construction and infra development in- and outside UB, whether it is in education or at projects.

-new placements in rural development. (with possible link to education/health?)

Please add comments or email David with thoughts.

SL Networking Conference January 2008?

Since Wilfro amd Chielo finish their contracts on the 24th of Feb and White Moon Festival is on the 8/9th Feb this leaves us with two periods that would, I think, be sensible,

Between 14th Jan and 24th Jan
Between 16th Feb and 22nd Feb.

Please add comments or email David with thoughts.

Secure Livelihoods Networking Meeting

(Wednesday 20^th June 2007)

Agenda

Day	Time	Activity	To meet objective	Led By	Comments
June 20th	8:30	Leave VSO Office for Conference Venue		Urnaa
	10:00	Meet and greet. Coffee		Urnaa
	10:30	Introduction to Conference.		Alison
		Feed back from last June		Alison
	11:00	Get it off Your Chest	Volunteer to Volunteer networking	David	Talk about our good and not so good placement experiences and to elicit help from Colleagues.
	12:00	Vision Fund	ICN	Tim Hooper	Introduction to micro credits availability.
	1:00	Lunch Followed by energizer session	Well Being!	Urnaa Duya
	2:00	Web based information sharing.	Volunteer to Volunteer networking	David	How to progress the information flow/communication.
	3:00	Secure Livelihoods Focus	ICN	David	Progress the document started at the last meeting.
	5:00	Walk/Meditation/Games	Well Being!
	7:00	Dinner and Disco Social Evening	Fun		Evening fun- pub quiz/ karaoke

Get it off Your Chest

Members of the group shared their frustrations and successes. From the last SL conference, Maija and Wyzta have successfully collaborated together to help the Women Farmers market their products. A good and enjoyable session.

Vision Fund

Tim Hooper from Vision Fund gave a very informative talk on opportunities for micro enterprise funding in Mongolia. Vision Fund (VF) was set up to finance World Vision projects but is now looking for ways to expand it’s area of lending to projects outside of the World Vision organization. VF is seeking suitable partners which have projects in need of funds. Khan Bank used to make loans as low as $400 but has recently moved the minimum to $1,200. VF are hoping to support projects of the type formed by business incubators with much smaller, unsecured loans.

Tim’s contact numbers are

Office 345323

Web tim_hooper@wvi.org

Our thanks to Tim for taking the time to be with us and for sharing his extensive experience of Mongolia’s development with the group.

Web based information sharing.

Work in this area is on going, with programme office moving to electronic distribution of information. But progress is slow. A concerted effort to collect the base line information is needed to kick start a meaningful and useful database. Ub tourist websites are to be trawled for useful information for new volunteers.

Secure Livelihoods Focus

The paper from the last SL conference was briefly discussed but in the absence of the Programme Area Manager, no progress was made. A tidied up version of the paper is on the way to the group via email

Conference April 2007 - For next time

For the next networking conference in June,

1. Feed back on items raised in 'get in off your chest'.
   
2. Follow up on the three diagrams.
3. Review the working of the blog.

Next meeting is the 20th June, venue yet to be decided.

Conference April 2007 - Concerning Placemets

There were 4 sessions ,

1. Identfy information needs of SL Programme area placements
2. UB vis-a-vie countryside SL placements - Differences and similarities in needs and challenges.
3. Identify common purpose between our differing projects/work placements.
4. Review SL programme area definitions/documents. Including how partners recruited and placements evaluated.

A bit ambitious in hindsight. But each session did roll on into the next, and as a result we came to a view which we documented in three diagrams. Unfortunately, a blog is not the right media to show them, so the diagrams will be sent to you by attachments on an email.

Conference April 2007 - About Blogging and the Web

The blog is to be used to promote networking between us, with the posts being classified according to content. The blog is a first step towards building a web site to store and delivery volunteer related information.

A new term enter our language - the ECHO seminar. I.e. people returning to base after attending a conference deliver an 'echo seminar' to interested colleagues covering the basic topics covered.

A 'how to do' blogging session was suggested and run on the Monday night after our return to UB. There are now 4 more bloggers out there!!!!

Conference April 2007 - Get it off your chest.

The first session of the day. And a really good exchange between us, all very positive, with help being offer and accepted.

A few things to follow up on,

1. A review of our own placement description documents, comparing their placement outlines with what we are actually doing.
2. Frequency of PO visits to placements. Do a survey amongst volunteers to assess how often and why visits were made.
   
3. Pressure in short term placements to come up with the goods too early - instant answers as opposed to considered solutions. Perhaps develop a check list apply to short term placements to assess viabilty (might already exist.?)
   
4. Are we feeling the benefits of VSO capacity building?
5. Are established volunteers always present during needs analysis sessions with potential partners?

Ok, we will follow through with some of these for the June SL Prog Area meeting.

SL Networking Conference. 26th - 29th April 2007

The conference was divided into three parts,

• workshop sessions
• a visit to Erik's placement
• a visit to Hazel's placement

And, of course , a bit of fun which is shown on www.davidvso.blogspot.com
The workshop sessions will be dealt with in the next couple of posts. The visits are covered by this post.

Erik's office and home are housed in an ex-hospital block near Arvayheer airport. Erik works in a business incubator unit as a small business advisor.

We visited one of Erik's clients. A lady who had set up a felt making and felt product manufacturing unit. The unit produces not only items for the tourists that visit the town but products for the local market. All kinds of fiber are used in the manufacture including, to Zoe's delight, yak.

Hazel's school and home. The school educations 32 young lamas between the ages of 11 and 17. It is one of only three such schools in Mongolia.



Apart from getting general education, the young lamas are being trained in the principles of Buddism to fit them for a life as lamas.

Another project which Hazel has been involved in with Erdene Zuu monastry involves work in the local prison. No photo's for obvious reasons!!!! Here they are working with the inmates to develop felt based manufacturing.

I also had a few words with the prison governor to explore the possibility of running construction skills training for the inmates. Left it that I would get back to him with a yes/no decision by the 11th May.

fibre-based and building training link

hi dave,
following up on the bus-chat, please could you email me the curriculum details of your vocational course at some point so that i can see if textile courses could be included in the program in due course...thanks for the screwdrivers!

hello

hello all... im up and running.... i found the network event really inspiring.... my bet is that this blog training will take 25 mins to complete...

contacts - monicpa (c/o joe)

1. monicpa - mongolian institute of certified public accountants
2. ministry of finance
3. various auditing companies
4. various accounting and business schools (including universities)
5. east asia mining and exploration company
6. ADRA
7. ivanhoe mining company
8. mobicom
9. erdenet mining company

BUMBUGUR (the purple market)

It is located west along tourist street which is a block behind the State Dept store. Walk north on the east side of the Dept. Store then turn left on tourist street, a pedestrianised area. Walk the length of the pedestrianised area, cross the next road still walking west. When you reach the corner of a high-fenced area turn right and you will see it in front of you. It has two buildings now (one on the rigth is new).

It has variety of stalls - groceries, veggies, meat, and fruits on the ground floor; dry goods on the second floor - stationery, kitchenware, bathroom items, electrical items and appliances, clothes and bags. Haggle to your heart's content!

Bit crowded. Speak in Mongolian. Closed on Mondays.

SL Networking Meeting - April 2007

Provisional Agenda.

The start.

A first attempt at an agenda,

1. Get it off your chest.
   
2. Identifying common purposes between our differing projects/work placements.
3. Identify information needs for the SL programme area placements.
4. Review the SL programme area definitions/documents. Including how partners recruited and placement evaluation.
5. Prepare items for the June Vols conference.
6. Take a tour of the local projects by VSO and other organisations, one each day.
7. UB vis-a-vie countryside SL placements. Differences and similarities in needs and challenges.

Feedback.

1. Agenda item addition - Re-define the SL programme with a Logframe
   
2. Agenda item addition - A session on "life skills development"
3. Move agenda item - 2, 3 and 4. To June Vols Conference?
4. Move agenda item - 3 to June Vols conference
5. Agenda item addition - A session on mainstreaming disability in the SL programme.
6. Agenda item addition - World vision provision of funds for micro enterprises. (Will need someone to track info from a chap called Tim at Vision Fund - any volunteers???)

OK guys, will need a quick response to these. Monday 23rd latest.

International Transport.

Railways
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To Beijing

1. There is only one pre-bookable train to Beijing which leaves early Thursday mornings.
   
2. The Sunday Beijing train from Moscow stops in UB and you can board if there is a berth.

Cost - T 66.000 for four berth and T 110,000 for double berth.

From Beijing

1. To pre-book, you need to go to the Beijing International Hotel's International Ticket office. It is on the second floor (Mongolian). The hotel is up the road opposite the railway station on the right hand side of the road. Very white and a very nice Hotel too.
2. It is definitely worth spending the extra and taking a double berth. Four berth are very cramped.
   

Cost - RMB 1,000 for double berth.

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To Inner Mongolia

1. Friday, details unknown

Cost - not known

UB Transport

This entry is an attempt to collect our combined knowledge of the UB transport system...........where do all these buses go?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trolley Buses

No. 2 - the length of Peace Avenue,,,, a long way
No. 4 - along Peace Avenue from the East and cuts down to the Railway Station on a loop.
No. 6 - along Peace Avenue from the East and cuts down south across Peace Bridge to the EXPO Centre

Cost - T 100
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Buses

No. 21 - runs in a loop taking in Suhkbaatar Square, Peace Avenue, The 3rd and 4th Shopping district and round the back of the Ganda Temple.

Cost - T 200

Voucher Training Scheme

The scheme is supported by the Employment Promotion Fund, and administed by an agency of the MLSW. The elements of the scheme are,

1. Covers short or non formal training in hair dressing, plumbing etc.
2. Course are for max four weeks duration.
3. Courses funded to different values according to the skills training.
4. Most course run by very small, private training providers.
5. Trainees must be registered with the local agencies, ie residents.
6. Trainees have to be registered unemployed.
7. Trainess application must be supported by a local social worker.

Other benefits available,

1. Trainees can apply for a grant covering 50% of food and travel costs for the training period.

If you have any additional info on the Voucher Scheme, please add a "comment" and I will edit the above.

Contacts - NGO's

Below are listed the NGO's that have been contacted by the SL Network members. For contact names in and information about the organisations, please email the Network member shown.

1. Lotus Children's Centre - Gek
2. Mongolian Accountants Association - Joe
3. Mongolian Builders Association - David
4. Mongolian Employers Federation - David
   
5. DED (German equivalent of VSO)- Alison
6. GTZ (not strictly an NGO more a bank) - David
7. ADB (not strictly an NGO more a bank) - Erka

Contacts - Education Institutions

Below are listed the Education Institutions that have been contacted by the SL Network members. For contact names in and information about the organisations, please email the Network member shown.

1. National University, Construction Faculty - David
2. Construction College - David
3. Technological Technical College - David
4. Technical Construction College - Rob/David

Contacts - Mongolian Companies

Below are listed companies that have been contacted by the SL Network members. For contact names in and information about the organisations, please email the Network member shown.

1. Jiguur Grand Construction - David
2. Bridge Construction - David
   

Contacts - Ministries and Government Agencies

Below are listed the Government of Mongolia (GoM) Mins and Agencies that have been contacted by the SL Network members. For contact names in and information about the organisations, please email the Network member shown.

1. Min. Culture, Science and Education
2. Min. Construction and Urban Development (MCUD) - David
3. Min. Labour and Social Welfare - David
   
4. MOSTEC - (The module development agency in the MCSE.) - David
5. NCCUDPU - (Nat. Cent. Construction, Urban Development and Public Utlities, deals with construction standards, skills testing and training) - David
6. Millennium Challenge Council - David
   

Logframe Project Specification

Here is a straight forward explanation of the Logframe method for specifying a project. You could find it useful in all sorts of project start up situations.

SL Networking Blog

Following discussions at the SL Conference, 12th to 13th March 2007, this Blog is the first stage in setting up an Internet based communication network for VSO Secure Livelihoods Volunteers. The aim of the network is to facilitated the information flow volunteer to volunteer, the VSO programme office and other interested parties.

1. Each volunteer in the SL programme has authorship rights on the Blog.
2. The Blog viewing access is restricted to the authors and other volunteers who request to join the network.
3. The programme area manager has over riding editorial rights on the Blog's posts.

Ok, this is a start. Any start up ideas, suggestions etc,....... post away. And, most importantly, do point out David's spell and grammaer errors!!!!!! Very important.