Phases 1 to 3 - Mongolia

Informing on women's rights

In Mongolia, the Liberal Women's Brain Pool has developed a "Human Rights Teaching Manual", with women rights as the main topic in Mongolian language (1000 copies have been distributed to NGOs and human rights activists/teachers).

Phase 2

1. One World – Children's Organization organized informal educational training, workshops, discussions, competitions and quizzes in Aimag and Soums rural counties to present children's basic rights to schoolchildren from 11 schools and to adults. The main issues addressed were: the right to education, the right to health and freedom to stay with their families. The targeted audiences were: poor children, street children and children with disabilities (an art fair was organized to present works of art produced by disabled children). The applicant also established human rights youth clubs in some of the schools visited; the clubs will be managed by the NGO. Another activity was the broadcasting of radio programmes on the right to development and children's rights.

Allocated grant: US$ 2,700

2. Amnesty International Mongolia translated Amnesty International’s Teachers’ Book for the Dissemination of Human Rights and distributed 500 copies to 71 institutions, including public libraries, schools, NGOs and human rights organizations. Seminars were organized on “Training teachers to teach about human rights and responsibilities in primary school”. A total of 138 teachers attended the sessions. The grant recipient reported that “the successful distribution of the book means that there is a need to conduct more seminars and workshops throughout the countryside. Many teachers expressed a desire for follow-up work and a further input on delivery of the human rights curriculum.”

Allocated grant: US$ 3,000

3. The Centre for Citizenship Education translated into Mongolian, published and distributed the UNESCO brochure “All human beings... Manual for Human Rights Education”. A total of 500 copies were produced. As a follow-up to the project, the grant recipient organized workshops to disseminate the manual to target audiences (teachers at primary and secondary schools, students, NGOs, etc.).

Allocated grant: US$ 3,000

4. The Centre for Human Rights and Development developed the first “national human rights record”, which highlights existing problems both in legislation and in practice. It also includes an annex commenting on the consideration by the United Nations Human Rights Committee at its fifty-sixth session of the fourth periodic report of Mongolia on domestic compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Twenty-two persons took part in the research. According to the NGO, as the compilation is in Mongolian, it is accessible to a large number of people. Moreover, the report should serve as a tool for human rights education and advocacy throughout the country for NGOs, lawyers, human rights activists, etc. Another achievement highlighted by the grant recipient is that its human resources gained capacity-building skills.

Allocated grant: US$ 3,000

5.Globe International organized a one-day seminar for six women journalists working for six daily newspapers. The project also involved new weekly columns in daily newspapers in cooperation with two specialized lawyers on violations of women's and children's rights. Potentially, more than 5 million readers throughout the country had a chance to be informed of their basic rights through the newspapers. Two hundred copies of a handbook, including educational materials on women's and children's rights issues, were published. The grant recipient reported that the trained journalists now have a sound knowledge of children's and women's basic rights and that they can address these issues in future articles. Moreover, UNICEF reacted positively to the project and agreed to support the trained journalists through further training and international meetings.

Allocated grant: US$ 3,000

Phase 3

Human Rights Awareness Raising on selected topics

Liberty Centre held a training workshop for 20 human rights activists from rural areas in January 2003. Information and training materials were distributed, and issues such as methodologies for human rights education and judicial reform in Mongolia were presented and discussed. The NGO organized a 1-day tour for the participants to examine local initiatives to promote human rights: visit of a newspaper that regularly writes on human rights issues; meeting with NGOs active on women’s rights and children’s rights; discussions on fundraising strategies and visit of a free web space provider.

From November 2002 to March 2003, Globe International developed a project aiming at assisting 19 human rights NGOs in Mongolia and 6 daily newspapers in increasing public relations and conducting media campaigns. The following points were discussed: principles of public relations and media campaigns, publication of newsletters, video journalism and production of talk-shows, freedom of information and public participation, right to reply and other media-related legal issues. Globe International also distributed a handbook on how to conduct a media campaign.

The Centre for Human Rights and Development conducted a research study from December 2002 to February 2003 on the status of the right to adequate housing in Mongolia, with a focus on less people. Based on the results of the research, the NGO held a seminar in which participated representatives from various ministries and social policy departments of districts’ administration. The NGO also produced 8 radio programmes on the right to adequate housing which were broadcast by the national radio station.

Human Rights, Health and Ethics

The association Women for Social Progress in Mongolia conducted a project focusing on human duties. They translated, produced and distributed 500 copies of the International Council on Human Rights’ handbook entitled Taking Duties Seriously: Individual Duties in International Human Rights Law to NGOs, public libraries, and political parties.

The Mongolian Association of Independent and Free Newspapers (MAIFN) an organization based in Mongolia developed a project aiming at elaborating a code of ethics for Mongolian journalists. A survey was conducted among 500 journalists on their views about the code of ethics. The code was adopted in February 2003, and 1200 copies were distributed to newspapers, schools of journalism, the Office of the President, the Speaker of the Parliament, the Prime Minister, the heads of political parties and judicial organizations.

Human Rights Education in the School System

In Mongolia, the PoliticalEducationAcademy organized a contest on theatre-play writing. The contest was advertised in three Mongolian newspapers. The play was performed in theatres in Ulaanbaatar and filmed by a famous Mongolian film-director. The film was shown to 18 teachers at the NGO headquarters, and to the general public in local branches of the NGO; more than 430 people watched it and had the opportunity to discuss the issues addressed by the film. The teachers said that it was the first time they were explained what human rights were, and they committed themselves to speak about human rights in their classrooms.