Women's Empowerment Seminar

On July 14 & 15 I hosted a Women's Empowerment Seminar.  The idea for the workshop came from Bujin, the coordinator of the Liberal Women's Brain Pool, an organization I do some of my side-project work at.  I developed most of the resources, and with the help of some fellow PCVs, we facilitated four sessions over two days.

 Kate and I getting ready for the Life Skills session Saturday morning.

 Tan lines!

 The first day's participants: prostitutes and at-risk teens

 Menopause Myths and Truths activity

 Hand washing demo

 Teeth brushing demo

 Condom demo!  Yeah!

 This photo cracks me up.

 Vegetarian meal cooking demo

 Ashley and Lauren facilitating the Domestic Violence session Saturday afternoon.

 A great PSA I found and had captioned in Mongolian.

 Seminar day two.  Koty prepping with the translator.

 Bujin addressing the women before getting things started.

 Day two participants: local business women and entrepreneurs. 

 Koty and Chris facilitating the Business session Sunday morning.

 Ashley and Lauren facilitating the Politics session Sunday afternoon.

 Back row L to R: Bujin, Ellen, Chris, Kate
Front row L to R : Lauren, Zaya, Koty, Ashley, me

Overall I'd say the seminar was a success despite the materials not being translated.  The Life Skills and Business sessions were by far the most well received, followed by Domestic Violence.  Politics was a total fail, but not because of the materials or facilitators.  The participants just were not into it, probably because they were tired of election/politics stuff so soon after the national elections.  Oh well.  If they choose to do something similar next year, the necessary changes can be made in plenty of time!  And having Ellen there to run the tea breaks was such a huge help.  Gave me the time to focus on logistics and feedbacking the sessions instead of having to watch a hot water pot.