S-CAR and Peace Corps Program: Reflections on my Experience in Mongolia
The Master's International (MI) program that partners a graduate school degree with Peace Corps field experience is hard to explain, but let me try. The MI program fits the degree to the expected field experience, allowing graduate students to have two years in the field to work and conduct personal research. At the School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, this means that most Peace Corps assignments would be a type of community development, such as my own placement as a Community Youth Development volunteer. Peace Corps works well with S-CAR because their training includes aspects such as appreciative inquiry, facilitation skills, capacity building, and community needs assessments. Fieldwork abroad with the Peace Corps in Mongolia seemed to be the perfect solution to my need for practical experience. Peace Corps Mongolia is a lot of things: educational, fascinating, engaging, and cold. Winter is already here in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and that makes getting to work in the ger districts of the capital city a mess of ice and snow. And yet every minute stuck in traffic because a car is spinning out ahead of the bus is worth it because of the students I get to work with. My 2nd year placement is a Swiss-run NGO called Bayasgalant, which loosely translates to "joy." Bayasgalant is a local daycare center that offers services to children whose families live below the poverty line in the western ger districts. These services include: 3 nutritious meals a day, personalized attention from our two teachers, help with homework, space to play, and now, with the addition of a Peace Corps Volunteer, health and life skills lessons. A large part of conflict analysis and resolution has a focus on individuals, their needs, and the needs of the community surrounding them. Working in the ger districts and yet living in the center of the sprawling capital gives me a unique opportunity to help identify life skills that the students could use in their daily lives, such as communication, personal planning, managing emotions, and relationship building. Community building at Bayasgalant starts with giving the children the basic help to live their lives, and then the tools to carry their future forward alone once they graduate high school.