Erdenetuul from Mongolia (Asian Girl Ambassador 2012)

Erdenetuul Batkhuyag is a 15-year-old Mongolian student and youth worker. She lives with her family in a “ger” community outside the capital city of Ulan Bator. “Ger” is the Mongolian word for a traditional home, and large communities of them lie outside the country’s big cities. People from these communities, especially girls and women, often live difficult lives and are cut off from Mongolia’s commercial districts and public services.

Like thousands of other girls in ger communities, Erdenetuul has a lot of responsibilities at home. In fact, a lot have so many household chores to do that they end up neglecting their schoolwork. Erdenetuul feels that her decision to join the local youth development program saved her from this kind of lifestyle. At the youth club, she learned a lot of new skills, including how to operate a computer and work on the internet, and she now helps teach others.

Erdenetuul and the MYDSC

Erdenetuul tutoring a girl in the primary school.

The MYDSC (Mongolian Youth Development Services Center) empowers young people, teaching them life skills and organizing youth social entrepreneurship programs, such as internet and training centers. Erdenetuul helped to establish one of these centers, and she works there four days a week, helping people open email accounts and search for information.

In addition to her work at the internet and training center, Erdenetuul and the other club members have set up a volunteer scheme to help elderly and disabled people in the community, and they’ve also organized competitions and events to raise awareness about the harmful effects of smoking and drinking alcohol.

Erdenetuul’s Future Plans

Erdenetuul says that girls from ger communities have little access to computers and the internet. To change that, she wants to set up a girls’ internet club. She also wants to change people’s attitudes towards the physical and sexual abuse women and girls face in Mongolia.

She has big plans for the future, and most of them involve helping others. (By Andrew Crosthwaite)

You can view her PowerPoint Presentation here

The Society for Education and Action (SEA)

The Society for Education and Action (SEA) is a Non Governmental Organization located in Mamallapuram in the Tamil Nadu region of India. It was founded in 2000 by community development workers and young people from thirty-two local fishing villages in and around the area, and has been working for child rights and child welfare over the past 13 years.

General Objectives:

The general objective of SEA is to promote the Rights of Children among children up to 15 years of age through child friendly schools, community, and their environment.

Specific Objectives:

• To extend within the formal and non-formal curricula teaching / learning methodologies that touch upon Rights of Children (ROC) within basic life skills, democratic values, and learning competencies, with assessment and evaluation techniques.
• To equip teachers, school assistants, Panchayath presidents counselors, in addition to youth leaders and Community Based Organizations (CBOs) such as SHGs with interactive techniques that promote Rights of Children and their practice.
• To improve the status of fisher women, who have a major part to contribute to their children’s development.
• To organize fisher women into cooperatives and organizations such as Self Help Groups (SHGs) to ensure that they are free from abuse and exploitation.