I do work, sometimes, honest.

Despite the appearance the tales on my blog might give (and they're only half the story I get around to writing up) I do, at times, do a lot of work.

The piece below is an example of one such occasion. This was a Friday night, Saturday morning effort, in the few hours before we took off for a week out west. I was given the task around 3pm on Friday afternoon, and leaving for the trip Saturday at 10am-ish.

The task was an entry into MC's innovation contest - calling for examples of innovations from MC offices around the world. The final version looked very different to this one after all kinds of miscommunications and what-nots, but I was obliviously enjoying being bogged on the way to Tavan Bogd in Bayan Ulgii at that point.

At any rate, it is a nice write up, slightly formal, of a really cool project MC Mongolia implemented in 2011. The project has inspired a few new proposals and is promoting a similar approach among other NGOs in the Mong.

Teaching Herders to Fish

Describe the problem that you were trying to solve The combined effects of the 2009-2010 dzud weather event, coinciding with the full brunt of the global financial crisis reaching rural Mongolia, resulted in large numbers of formerly nomadic herding families being forced to relocate to rural urban centers. Due to these rapid changes in their lives, signs of distress were common, with alarmingly high incidents of depression, alcohol dependence, domestic violence and suicide hastening the necessity of addressing this crisis. These psychological and social implications were compounded by a lack of employable skills together with a lack of employment opportunities due to the global financial crisis.

By May 2010, 20% of all livestock across Mongolia, or 8.2 million animals, had become victims of the severe weather event locals call dzud. The dzud is result of an extremely dry summer, followed by an extremely cold winter with unusually high snowfall. For many families across rural Mongolia these losses amounted to their entire herds. No longer able to continue the lifestyle they knew, larger numbers of formerly nomadic families relocated their gers (portable nomadic dwelling) to rural urban centers. Families used to endless steppe encircling all sides of their round dwelling were suddenly surrounded by a fence, then beyond that they were enclosed by thousands of other people, buildings, roads and cars with barely a goat, sheep or horse in sight.

With no employable skills, and few jobs available anyway former herders had no way to support their families. Living in the poorest edges of town, these families struggled to form productive communities, instead being held together by their lack of skills, their lack of employment and mostly, their lack of hope.

What is the innovation? Actions/Activities Our response to this unprecedented combination of events was underpinned by the proverb: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Past programs by government and civil society organizations, ourselves included, focused on meeting the critical need in the situation – unemployed people need jobs. The problem with this approach in practice was that, for various reasons, even when we did all we could to place an unemployed person in a job there was almost no sustainability – after a few weeks many simply didn’t turn up to work, and those who did lacked motivation to obtain new skills and contribute to their workplaces. With this past experience in mind, we were determined to address the root cause of the issue, and in doing so found ourselves ‘teaching herders to fish’.

Our solutions was to deliver a pioneering approach in Mongolia that would meet not just marginal household's critical economic needs through employment, but would primarily address the root cause of their psychological and social issues and empower individuals to take responsibility for bettering their life situation through the delivery of Psycho-Social Support (PSS) training, accompanied by enabling services including kindergartens, vocational skills training and labor market days. This new technique has delivered greater impact and deeper insight into the best practices for meeting the needs of communities.

Describe the actions and activities that were undertaken Given the lack of ocean and relatively few bodies of water we did not, in fact, find ourselves literally teaching herders to fish. We did however find ourselves teaching herders to sing, dance, draw, act out skits, play team sports and take part in public speaking. We also taught them important life-skills and coping mechanisms for dealing with stress and emotions, the importance of personal goal setting and the value of social bonds and communities. These were key parts of the PSS curriculum we delivered, in partnership with the “Mongol Household” psychotherapy association, via eight trainers in each of 10 provinces, especially trained to deliver the course for two, two-hour session each week to eight groups of 20 participants in each province – making a total of 1,600 participants.

Alongside the PSS training, specific employment support activities were implemented as part of the program. These included vocational skills training for over 4000 individuals. By improving their marketable skills, our objective was to ensure these participants would be more likely to find long term, sustainable and fulfilling employment. Labor market days were organized to bring together job seekers and employers, while an Employer Support Mechanism provided incentives to local employers to sustainably expand their business and hire extra employees.

An additional key activity was to establish kindergartens in the neighborhoods of our target group. These neighborhoods are on the fringes of rural urban centers, where poverty is rife and most children have no access to pre-school education. Establishing these kindergartens created the opportunity for children in these families to learn social skills, gain knowledge about hygiene and healthy eating – and most importantly, it kept them occupied in a safe environment while their parents participated in the PSS training or related employment support activities.

How do you know that it worked (or didn’t work)? The PSS training has proved a phenomenally effective. By targeting the underlying psychological and social issues common among unemployed, individuals were empowered to seek out employment opportunities for themselves, while becoming active members of their communities, engaged in local decision-making.

When we visit project participants we are blown away by the seemingly endless stream of outgoing, confident participants eager to share how the PSS training has changed their lives. Many tell of the close friendships they have now formed with others in their class. Many now have full-time jobs, making use of their newly obtained vocational skills. Meanwhile others have taken matters into their own hands and formed their own small businesses. Before participating in the Psycho-Social Support training, these individuals lacked the self-confidence to so much as apply for a job - let alone the energy and commitment to actively start their own business.

And the statistics backup our participant's stories. One in two PSS training participants are now employed. Following a survey of PSS participants after the training, 97% responded that they have experienced a positive change in themselves. The project aimed to create 700 new jobs. To date 1401 individuals have found permanent employment - a success rate of 200%! The capacity of attendees for the PSS training sessions was 1600. At its peak 1642 people participated in the training sessions, a result of participants encouraging their partners and friends to come along.

But most importantly of all, our efforts to ensure these activities are sustainable have been a success. A focus on tri-partite partnerships from the beginning of the project has ensured shared ownership of initiatives. Local government in eight of the ten provinces will continue to operate the kindergartens established under the project. One small, but significant, example of the impact of the PSS training in communities can be seen in local job advertisements. Employers are now actively asking for Mercy Corps' PSS training graduates to fill their vacant positions.

What would you recommend to do differently in the future? Analysis of Experience: Outcomes and Learning One improvement we would make in the future is the duration of the training period. Based on scientific research, the Psycho-Social Support training was delivered over a six-month period. In practice we found that maintaining regular attendance over such a long period of time proved very challenging. We also observed that over just three months a significant change was evident in participants. In the future we would recommend condensing the training period to just three months and not holding the training over summer, when there are greatly increased seasonal employment opportunities in rural Mongolia.

Other than this improvement, the inclusion of the Psycho-Social Support training has proved highly effective. Our team have seen the reality of Mercy Corps vision for change in action with strong government, private and civil society participation leading to sustainable change in very real ways for individuals, families and communities across rural Mongolia. With relevant cultural adjustments we highly recommend this approach when implementing employment support programs and we can see its potential in a range of other contexts. We hope to include elements of the PSS training in future programs in Mongolia.