Mongolia has a high growth rate in Internet penetration and its broadband index is really high – with average speeds of 7.3Mbps, Mongolia is at No. 35 of world ranking. While the urban areas have broadband many rural areas in Mongolia have no power or internet.
Workshop in Mörön, the administrative center of the Khövsgöl province
Nomad Green, the Rising Voices grantee in Mongolia is training local citizen journalists how to use blogs, digital video, podcasts, and map mashups to report on environmental news. They are also expanding to faraway places from the capital Ulaanbaatar to bridge the gap of digital divide between the urban and rural areas. From June 23 to July 3, Nomad Green arranged workshops in the North Eastern Khövsgöl Province. The region is well-known for its natural beauty and Lake Khövsgöl is one of Mongolia's major tourist attractions. The team included the project organizer Axiou Lin, chief editor Otgoo, and devoted environmentalist and advisor Boum.
Workshop in Khatgal village in the Khövsgöl province
Portnoy, the project manager of Nomad Green writes:
The team visited the biggest lake in Mongolia-Lake Khovsgol, and met with local environmentalist and nature protectors. The natural environment of this aimag is also under severe pressure from mining business and desertification, just like most other aimags (provinces) in Mongolia.
Murun and Khatgal are the two major administrative and business towns in the aimag. We were very excited to spread our message this far and enroll new citizen journalists with high ambition.
Workshop with the children in Ulaanbaatar
On July 3rd the team came back to the capital Ulaanbaatar to conduct a special workshop for kids which was organized by students of National Taiwan University. Portnoy writes:
We taught these kids how to become small citizen journalists by drawing what they saw in their daily life. Education is considered as one of the most crucial issues along with environmental protection. NomadGreen wishes to combine those two issues and make kids the initiator of change in their families.
More photos here courtesy Portnoy:
1) Workshop in Mörön (Murun) city in Khövsgöl Aimag (province)
2) Worshop in Khatgal village on the southern tip of Lake Khövsgöl
3) Workshop in Ulaanbaatar for children with the help of NTU students.
Here some of the posts of the Nomad green bloggers are highlighted.
Bolorerdene writes (translated by Mongoloo) about the value of nature that we do not realize. The blogger reminds:
One of the Mongolian famous poets Choinom said “The more you know the life value, the more you receive the life favor. If you don’t realize its importance, you would be blown like dust”.
Batzul (Bazu) writes about his experience of visiting the stadium for World games in Taiwan. Although the stadium has Solar panels, he learnt that “producing solar panel makes pollution and uses a lot of pure water.” Moreover cleaning of roof panels requires a lot of time, energy and resources. That is why Solar panels are not yet a cost effective alternative energy.
Please read more of their posts in the Nomad Green site.
