Af: Johnny Baltzersen, CICED
CICED has started a new project in Mongolia.
This new joint MAPSSD-CICED project has two main goals:
· One, to support home-based early childhood education for children of pastoralist families. Children who have no opportunities of going to kindergarten.
· Two, to support better and more family-like care and conditions in dormitories.
The project runs for three years starting 1 October 2019 and ending September 2022. It is financed by the Danish CISU – the organisation administering DANIDA funding for NGOs. The project budget is 2,750,000 Danish Kroners, approximately 1,000,000,000 tügrig.
An opening conference in Ulaanbaatar 2-3 November 2019 gathered representatives from all 62 MAPSSD branches.
During its first year of implementation the local branches will in close collaboration with local authorities identify families to be involved in the home-based early childhood education program. Parents will be introduced to the program and arrangements for proper support and collaboration will be drafted.
Existing learning materials will be identified, and new materials guidelines will be developed. Among the materials to be recommended will be traditional as well as modern games that enhance, for example children’s motor skills, language proficiency, creative, and rational thinking.
The current situations in dormitories will also be analyzed and plans will be drafted for improving the conditions towards a family-like, child friendly caring and learning atmosphere.
Following training of early childhood education facilitators and dormitory teachers from November 2019 to April 2020 and regional workshops in August 2020 all branches will engage in full scale implementation of the project activities.
At the end of the project
– Home-based early childhood education program is in sustainable operation in all 62 soums/local branches.
– Up to 80% of all pastoralist families and more than 2000 children have been involved in the homebased early childhood education program.
– 80% of dormitories of the involved soums/local branches have improved their social, cultural and learning conditions, and dormitories are more family-like and caring accommodations for children.
– Funding is secured for continued home-based early childhood education, and for retaining and further improving the dormitory conditions.
