#secondaryprojects

Sorry I’ve been AWOL but between the Great Gingras Family Vacay of 2015, my teaching seminar, and a vacation to Myanmar, I am just now collecting my thoughts in my ger. I’ll post about family vacations next week, but this week I wanted to write about my English Teacher’s Seminar. First, let me again express my gratitude to everyone who took the time to donate to my project. We couldn’t have done this project without you, so THANK YOU! This project was extremely successful, though that success was mainly due to the hard work of my awesome CP Sony and the seven other PCVs who helped out with the project (THANK YOU Virginia, Emily, Melissa, Tyler, Noah, Rojo, and Will!).  All the PCVs were responsible for writing session lesson plans, preparing materials, facilitating sessions alongside Mongolian CPs, and observing the soum teachers during their practice teaching sessions.

There are about 70 English teachers in our province- we had approximately 50 come to the event. So we divided the 50 into two groups. Each group was further divided into groups of 3-4 for practice teaching.  We had sessions on Teaching Reading, Writing, Listening, and Speaking. We had sessions on Using the Internet, Creating Renewable Resources, Forming English Clubs, Adapting the English Textbook, and Teaching Difficult Grammar. We started each day with a Youth Development lesson featuring our Life Skills books (these are books that showcase skills such as communication, stress management, etc.). With each lesson, we had the teachers do a number of activities that they could use directly in their classrooms. 

Then, after practicing the skills together, we asked each group to plan a lesson for the following day that showcased one of those skills.  We encouraged all English teachers to take control in their classrooms. We were able to really see progress in the teachers from the first day of practice teaching to the last day.  Furthermore, all the soum teachers were really excited about the prospect of forming relationships with Americans- for the most part, we were the first Americans that they had ever worked with. 

For me, it was truly rewarding to see a project that Sony and I have been working on since January finally come together.  There was so much speculation on our parts about whether or not this seminar would be successful (we even had a phone call the night before it started where we both freaked out a little and tried to think of things we could have forgotten lol). We were both very relieved to be done with the actual project.  Now that I’m back from vacation, it’s time for me to work on my grant completion report.  I’ll compile receipts to account for every tugrik spent, write all of the success stories down, and try to put into words how much this project meant to me.

Will I do another seminar next year? I just might. Though pulling it all together was stressful at times, the actual project itself made it all worth it. I think during the grant writing phase, it didn’t feel as real, but when I actually did the project, it was a great reaffirmation of what a Peace Corps Volunteer truly does. (And of course, how much  more awesome a project can be when you have the support of 7 other brilliant PCVs).

So, thank you to everyone who donated. Your postcards were sent out a few weeks ago, so if we’re lucky you’ll have them by August. I took so many pictures of the seminar, so here are a few of my favorites (stay tuned to Facebook if you want to see them all!)

PHOTOS

Sony starting off the seminar with a rousing speech!

Several PCVS helped out with the Creating Renewable Resources session :)

Teachers preparing for the Teaching Speaking practice teaching.

Collaboration between English teachers was key for this seminar- we wanted teachers who worked alone in their soum to form relationships with other English teachers.

Em’s CP Enkhee facilitating the Teaching Writing lesson.

Two teachers acting out a short reading during the Teaching Reading Lesson.

Teachers sorting sentences (and pretending to be 6th graders).

My CP Uuree facilitating the Teaching Reading lesson.

Practice teaching- teaching reading!

My feedback on a group’s practice lesson- Teaching Reading using recipes (their idea- though I’m definitely stealing it!)

About a month ago, we heard from our fellow PCVs that aimags out east were being ravaged with wildfires. One volunteer’s soum in particular had 70 families lose all of their possessions and livestock to the fires. Now, 70 families doesn’t sound like a lot. But in a town of 2,000, that’s a lot of people. 

Seeing the pictures was so sad for me, as I knew that there would be no homeowner’s insurance to buy new clothes or build a new ger. There would be no way to replace the treasured photos. And for those families who lost their livestock as well as their ger, they were in for a rough year ahead. 

PCVs in other areas leapt into action- someone started a clothing drive at the PC main office in UB (many volunteers about to COS donated everything from clothes to pots and pans). Other volunteers started contacting local aid agencies in their area, such as Red Cross or Mercy Corps. 

I happen to see the Facebook post on my way to Bookbridge. Mulling it over, I proposed the idea of some sort of benefit concert to my fellow PCVs and Duuya (the Bookbridge librarian) while teaching our morning lesson. We then thought about it a bit and proposed the idea to both our young students and then our older class. Our older students helped us write an announcement in Mongolian. I would be leaving in just 4 weeks for TOT. The thought of putting together a full concert in that amount of time was stressful, but Duuya seemed confident. 

Together with our student Tuvshin, Virginia and I went to the local theater to ask for the stage for a night. We were prepared to beg and bargain our way in (because in America theaters book months in advance) but were told no problem! We returned the following Tuesday with Duuya to sign the theater contract. Then, we designed announcements and tickets and wrote letters to each of the school directors explaining our projects’ purpose and what we needed from each school. We printed the tickets and brought them to the theater to get stamped Friday. The theater manager went to the countryside randomly, so we weren’t able to pick up the tickets until the following Wednesday. At that point, Melinda and Duuya went to all the schools to deliver the tickets. We found we were 30-odd tickets short. I went back to the theater Friday and was able to give them to the school relatively quickly.

Now, in America, we would have plenty of dress rehearsals. So, in the American fashion, we attempted to hold one the Sunday before the show. Two students showed. Feeling stressed, I decided that each school’s volunteer would be responsible for getting their students’ names and music and to watch them rehearse their 15 minutes at school. We would do this without a large rehearsal. 

Three days before the show, our aimag’s largest school backed out. I had to drop everything and take their tickets to our local university and ask them to sell the tickets. Two days before the show, I had most of the music and names, but changes were still being made. Only 1 PCV had seen their students rehearse- the rest, including me, were told “don’t worry” by their music teachers. The day of the show, I arrived at the theater a mere two hours before curtain. All of the acts were being changed, music directors were walking around with flash drives for various acts. Money was being given out in wads for each school’s ticket sales. Children were running around trying to do their hair, costumes and make up. It was chaos. 

However, at 6 o’clock, the curtain rose and a flawless 100-minute performance unfolded. It was repeated a second time at 8:30. The ticket sales are still coming into the theater, but Duuya should have a total to send to Tumentsogt soum by Friday.

If I had tried organizing a benefit concert in less than four weeks in America, I don’t think I would have been successful. This project required me to put an enormous amount of blind faith in a group of relative strangers (the music teachers, social workers, and the students themselves). I had to trust in Mongolia that although a few hours before the curtain rose nothing was ready, at show time these people would deliver a concert worthy of the ticket price. I took a leap of faith... and Mongolia certainly was there to catch me. 

I don’t think I could have done this project six months ago. I was (and still am in many ways) too “American” about managing projects. I had to know every detail always instead of trusting people to come through and get stuff done. Did I wish I had everything planned out and rehearsed in advance? Absolutely. But being here for almost a year has allowed me to let go of a lot of my control and be content with the role that I had in the project. Ultimately, the project was a success and we think we will do another concert next year as the students loved it. However, being the American that I am, I will probably plan it out 2-3 months in advance next time :)

PHOTOS

Students anxiously waiting for the concert to start!

Em with her students

Me with my seventh graders :)

My 2a student killing her Bollywood dance!

Our MC Duuya calmly relaxing in between shows

My student singing a traditional Mongolian song.

V’s students playing the horse head fiddle, a traditional Mongolian instrument.

V’s student doing a traditional Mongolian dance of the taiga- this is a Reindeer dance- here she is imitating antlers with her hands.

Zak’s student playing the piano- so cute!

In conclusion, Mongolian students are all very talented and hardworking. As are their teachers and social workers. I am so lucky to serve here in Zavkhan, where the Mongolians are not only supportive of my project ideas but also more than willing to donate their time to make sure it was a success. 

To all my M-26s reading this blog- are you ready to come to this amazing country? 10 days until you leave for staging!

Much love,

C

As anyone who has been friends with me on Facebook knows, in about a month I will be hosting a 6-day seminar for approximately 90 English (and now Russian) teachers in my aimag. Obviously, money will be needed for food, supplies, housing, and renting a place to host the seminar. But where does this money come from? Is the community expected to pay for everything? Is the Peace Corps Volunteer expected to get money from Peace Corps? Enter the Peace Corps Partnership Program, or PCPP for short.

The PCPP is a wonderful tool not only to raise funds for secondary projects in the community, but also to build capacity for a community member by teaching them about writing grants. The PCPP is the “gateway” grant of grants. Basically, a PCV (that’s me!) and a CP (my friend the Foreign Language Methodologist Sony) fill out a relatively short yet detailed grant proposal (about 5 pages). The Peace Corps Grant Online Portal (PCGO) walks the volunteer and the CP step by step through the process, from objective writing to budgeting. During the budgeting step, the PCPP grant program asks the volunteer and the CP to consider “in-kind” contributions. That is, what can be donated from within a community so that we don’t have to pay for it? This might seem obvious to us, but volunteerism and donations are still relatively new here. They also don’t know how to “monetize” said contribution. So, for example, Sony and I thought about the monetary value of Div Shil school “donating” their classrooms to us to use for the seminar. PCPP grants require a minimum of 25% community contribution to a project, and much of that contribution is typically in-kind, whether it’s teachers donating their time to facilitate seminars, letting us use classrooms, or simply Mongolians being their typical generous selves and not charging us for printing services (thanks, Em’s khashaa dad!)

I find this whole approach a very positive way to starting a secondary project, as you have to consider a community’s strengths and not just start with a problem. The community is an active participant in projects- they are not being “helped” by American funds but are working together to create a project that best serves their community.

Once a PCPP grant is approved, it gets posted on PC’s website for project donations. At this point, the project is “crowd funded” until it reaches it’s goal. The difficult part about this is the project must be fully funded before the PCV has any access to funds. However, once it is funded, a requirement is that the PCV and his or her CP must jointly create a bank account for PC to deposit the funds. This is another good aspect of the program- in a roundabout way, it teaches fiscal accountability/ transparency, by having both PCV and CP manage the funds together. Money cannot “disappear,” be misused, or even suspected of being misused. Together, the PCV and CP spend the grant funds and collect receipts so at the end of the event they can show that they spent the money exactly how they detailed in their budget. Unused funds are returned to Washington (though if you budget correctly, that shouldn’t be an issue!)

All in all, writing this grant has been a great learning process for both my CP Sony and I. As an education major, I was used to writing goals and objectives, but clearly budgeting a project was a new experience for me! I’m excited to branch out and write more grants for other projects next year- maybe not through PCPP, but through other funding sources. The whole “crowd funding” aspect is a bit nerve wracking for me. Right now, we are $80 short of our goal and trying to get those last $80 has been really tough. I can’t see who has donated to the project until it is fully funded, so I can’t target my audience at all.  Furthermore, you can only post on Facebook so many times before you become “that person.” I’m that person right now I suppose lol.

Here is the link to my project if you’re interested. I’d ask for donations, but I’m pretty sure everyone who is reading this blog has already donated :). If you have donated, THANK YOU SO MUCH! I bought my thank you postcards today- a limited edition postcard that features a scenic view of one of Zavkhan’s most beautiful places! If you haven’t donated, please consider helping me out! Even $5 would be a big deal. The soum teachers in my aimag for the most part have never met a PCV and I cannot emphasize enough how big of an opportunity this is for them. They deserve access to the same educational tools and trainings that we take for granted as Americans! :)

PHOTOS

None of these have to do with the above post BUT I always promise photos so I try not to disappoint :)

Last week, we had 50+ 5/6th grade students show up to our Saturday lesson. I guess you know you’re doing a good job when you can fit them all in one room haha

We had a karaoke contest at my school last week- these are two of my seventh grade boys trying to act nonchalant as they prepare to sing.

My 6th grade student Gandirmaa killing Selena Gomez’s I Love you like a Love Song. Karaoke is extremely popular here. Most Mongolians are disappointed to find out I can’t sing.

My walk on Saturday- still plenty of snow! Though it has melted. All those small figures you can see on the path are my 5th grade students. 20 of them diligently walk with me to my Saturday lessons every week. Sometimes I walk a bit fast for some, but they all catch up eventually!

My 5th grade student Davaasuren. She has yet to catch on that I’m not fluent in Mongolian and will talk my ear off the whole 60 min walk to the library lol.

These three always keep pace with me- they like that they have extra time to by “breakfast” read- candy- at the store before the lesson starts.

Duuya’s son, Bold-gii being very amused with a fortune teller Em made him. He’s grown so big since I got here!

My sitemate Travis and I displaying our margaritas- we celebrated Cinco de Mayo / Virginia’s birthday a bit late here!

Uliastai M-25s! Looking forward to another year of projects with them!

I hope you all have a fantastic week- next week, I’ll be posting from Darkhan for TOT (Training of Trainers!) Stay tuned! Much love,

I’d like to dedicate a post to a wonderful community partner I work with every Saturday: BOOKBRIDGE Library. BOOKBRIDGE is an organization started by the World Scout Movement. Sorry for the all caps but that’s how their organization spells it, so that’s what I’m doing!

According to their website, 

“In 2005, a group of European scouts traveled to Mongolia for the first time. With a Mongolian scout troop as their guide, they got to know the country and its people. During a visit to a rural elementary school, the scouts noticed that the children asked many questions in English and were very eager to learn. Upon visiting the school‘s library however, the scouts found an empty room. No books were available for more than 1,000 children. Remembering that a scout’s most important duty is to serve the community, the scouts started to collect English books upon their return home. In 2009, they returned to the little village and set up a learning center with the books they had collected. The learning center had a dramatic impact on the local community as 25,000 people in the region immediately gained access to education. By training 120 local teachers the quality of education improved as well. Many children and young adults began visiting the learning center and attending free courses and activities. Soon, local businesses showed interest in the center’s services and for a fee, the learning center began training local employees in English. Within one year of its opening, the center became financially self-sufficient and is now a local employer, offering salaried positions to three staff members. Back home in Europe, the scouts began to think about how they could help more people with their idea and how to apply a business model approach to improving global access to education. Together with the World Scout Movement (consisting of 28 million scouts worldwide), they setup the BOOKBRIDGE FOUNDATION to promote cooperative work and transnational understanding by building simple, educational bridges.” 

I teach English to 6th-10th grade students there every Saturday with my fellow PCVs Emily and Melinda and the Bookbridge librarian, Dulamsuren (affectionately known as “Duuya”). The classes are free and all students can attend whenever they can.

This is one of my favorite parts of my week. The children who come to the library all have such enthusiasm and drive to learn English. Their enthusiasm is quite infectious and no matter how tired I am, I leave feeling like I drank three cups of coffee! I also love that I get to interact with students from all schools in addition to mine. It’s now extremely common for Emily, Melinda and myself to be greeted by students all over town! We play all sorts of games, ranging from listening games to outdoor speaking games to American card games. We teach about American holidays as well as English for Mongolian holidays. We also hold competitions here and give away books as prizes.  And, best of all, the lessons are at a library, so not only can we make use of so many books during the lessons, but we can also encourage students to get library cards and take home English books.

Duuya (the librarian) lives not far from me in Shine Khoroo. She has been a huge help with my Mongolian and has always welcomed me into her home. I definitely relied on her a lot when I came to site- she was one of my first friends. She is also improving her English speaking and hopes someday to visit BOOKBRIDGE headquarters in Germany. 

I am so grateful to this organization for providing not only a space for us to have Saturday lessons, but also a hardworking and dedicated staff. BOOKBRIDGE is a fantastic organization- if anyone from that organization stumbles across this blog, thank you!!!

PHOTOS

Em, Melinda and I teaching emotions. Em draws everything for our classes. She’s wonderful :)

Duuya, one of my first friends here and our Bookbridge librarian.

My 8-10th grade class acting out fairytales.

Valentine’s Day Competition Judging

Teaching Tsagaan Sar vocabulary- Em is demonstrating our action for “greet family.” We try to teach all new verbs with action cues to help students remember!

More action verbs- push vs. pull. Got to make sure my Bookbridge students can open doors! 

Teaching Tsagaan Sar advanced vocab to our 8-10th grade students!

Sentence construction- how we open most of our lessons!

Explaining Uno this past week- Monglians LOVE this game.

My students with Em- they REALLY love UNO.

I hope everyone has a wonderful week!