Peace Corps of the United States AHY-1>1u 3HX TAHBHLI KOPilYC

Box 1036, Central Post, Ulaanbaatar 13, Mongolia

Description of Peace Corps Service

Danny Marx Mongolia

After a competitive application process stressing applicant skills, adaptability, and cross cultural sensitivity, Danny Marx began Peace Corps Training on June 5th 2005 in the city of Darkhan, Darkhan-Uul province in Mongolia and completed an intensive 11-week community based program. Training elements included a home stay, approximately 160 hours of Mongolian language, cross culture seminars, countryside survival skills, and technical courses in community youth development within the Mongolian context.

Mr. Marx was officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer on August 20th,

2005. He was responsible to numerous agencies during his service. His original assignment was with the Erdenet Co-Development Non-Government Organization. Later he worked with the Erdenet Area branch of World Vision. He finished his service jointly responsible to the Erdenet Non-Formal Education Center and the Erdenet Vocational Training School. Mr. Marx served as a community youth development volunteer and reported directly to both Mr. Khurelbaatar director of the Erdenet Vocational Training School and Mrs. Monktuya the director of the Erdenet Non-Formal Education Center.

Danny's primary activities as a community youth development volunteer in Erdenet revolved around capacity development of youth and youth senring organizations and persons.

While working with the ErdenetArea branch of World Vision and the Erdenet Co Development NGO Danny spent countless hours working with the staff to improve their office management skills as well as improve their English language competencies. Perhaps his greatest achievement while working with these offices was the successful planning, organization, and execution of a conference that focused on the necessity of cooperation among the many organizations working in the I!.rdenet area thc:..t work V'irit11 the local youth. This conference was attended by representatives of over 25 organizations. Presentations were made by the Erdenet Mayor, Director of World Vision, Director of the local office of the International Red Cross, Peace Corps, President of the Erdenet College Youth Council, the chief of police, the director of the Children center, and many more. The conference resolved to create an Erdenet Youth Organization Council composed of representative from all of the organizations present at the meeting. The goal of this council was to hold occasional meeting where organizations could present their plans for the future and figure out how they could collaborate in order to pool their resources for the benefit of the local youth.

Peace Corps of the United States Building 95, Microregion 6, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Tel: 311518 Fax: 311520 Country Code: 976 City Code: 11

Email: custodian@mn.peacecorps.gov

At the Erdenet Non Formal Education center he planned and taught a series of lessons to each class of students of various ages and development levels. These lessons focused on a variety of life skills development. The lessons generally involved a short presentation of new and interesting information followed by an assortment of games and exercises which forced the students to use their own unique experiences to understand the importance of the particular lesson's focus. Many of these lessons were also presented to groups of community leaders with the intention of having the importance of the focus on proper development of the youth disseminate throughout all levels of the community from government officials to families. Danny also taught separate lessons to the staff of the Erdenet Non Formal Education Center about proper teaching methodology with the intention of establishing a level of sustainability in the program of life skill education he had initiated.

At the Erdenet Vocational Training School Danny established an after school club whose attendance grew with every meeting. The final meeting of this club had to be held in the school auditorium because over 100 students showed up. In this club Danny facilitated a number of activities meant to empower the students as well as present them with new and interesting information that otherwise may have never been made available to the students, He also taught basic leadership and club management skills to improve the capacity of the youth led clubs. He reused many of the lessons presented to the students of the Non Formal Education center, conducted weekly IQ style quiz competitions, jointly translated popular foreign songs and discussed the meanings behind the lyrics, and encouraged the students to organize independently and use their collective ambitions to accomplish great things. This club organized a year end all school picnic and sport competitions. Danny also worked with the school's teachers and held trainings on new methodology of student centered instruction to contrast the traditional teacher centered teaching styles which remained prevalent since the fall of the communist education system in the early 199o's.

Every summer Danny worked at a local summer youth camp located 60

kilometers north of the city. This camp's original purpose was to keep the children busy and occupied during their summer breaks by having them labor in vegetable plots (potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and onions). This work was intended to instill a strong work ethic in the youth and protect them from the harmful sense of apathy which has infected much of the population, When the children were not laboring they were given free time to do whatever they wanted. Danny was able to use his influence to use this free time to implement more structured programs; classroom lessons (English language and life skills), organized sport competitions, time to help local herders and learn about their more traditional Mongolian lifestyles, Nature hikes and awareness conversations, etc. Danny was also able to use his connections with World Vision to have three gers (traditional Mongolian felt tents) donated to the camp and grow enrollment from 150 kids the first year to 200 kids the second year. He also coordinated with area social workers to guarantee that many of the area ehildren who suffer in some of the most difficult circumstances were reserved places at the summer camp.

Danny arranged with Peace Corps to have the new group of community youth development trainees spend three days at the camp learning how to interact with children at a very informal level. He used this time to portray to the new trainees a more realistic account of what their future life as a volunteer would be like and also to discuss the greatest difficulties he had experienced and how he was able to persevere. The trainees mutually expressed their gratitude to Danny for arranging what they felt was an incredibly usefol training. Peace Corps staff was also greatly impressed with the success of this never before attempted format for trainings and hope to be able to continue and even expand it to future trainings and trainees.

Danny was also able to work very successfully outside his traditional workspace. Independently he was able to network with numerous agencies in the community and begin programs aimed at helping to develop the community and the community youth in particular.

Working with a local radio station Danny was able to write and produce a series of 10 radio programs, each focusing on a particular life skill: intro to life skills, self-esteem, communication, relationships, managing emotions, decision making, planning skills, stress management, empathy, and critical thinking. These productions were aired every other day for a month. Recordings of the shows and transcripts have been made available to every Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia.

Worlzing with a local television station and site mate Rachel Hatch, Danny helped begin the broadcast of the local news in English once a week. Danny hopes that this broadcast can become a forum to present the community with valuable international news and topics that will help raise the awareness of important issues that affect the Mongolia and the world in general.

Working with the Erdenet Education and Culture Center Danny was able to organize a trivia competition among teams of students from 6 of the area's schools. The competition stressed the importance of having a good well rounded education. The format of the competition will be emulated in the future for similar events with area college students, teachers, and young professionals. Erdenet Public Television has expressed interest in having the competitions televised.

Peace Corps Mongolia has recently been tackling the issue of Trafficking in Persons (TIP) throughout the country. Danny was an active member in the Peace Corps' focus on TIP education. He attended every meeting of the PCM TIP committee. At site he spoke to numerous internet cafes and was able to convince them to use a particular website aimed at educating the Mongolian youth about the issue as their homepage. This way any child who wanted to surf the net were confronted with this information. He personally arranged for meetings at each of the area's universities where he was able to present the issue to particularly vulnerable students. He also presented the issue to a large group of English

teachers and helped them develop lesson pla1is that lJSed the iss\ie of Trafficking in Persons in their English classes. ·

Danny through his 27 months of service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia consistently proved that he was able to confidently confront and succeed through the numerous unique difficult situations he was dealt. He was able to deal V\rith the internal turmoil in the agencies in which he was assigned and remain focused on his goal to help develop Mongolia and the youth in particular. His accomplishments have been often praised by his community and were even specifically fi atured in subsequent a·unual reports sent to Washington DC. He has become a beacon of exemplary triumph over diversjty in the Peace Corps Mongolia community and will be missed.

This is to certify in accordance with Executive Order No. 11103 of April 10, 1963, that Mr. Marx served satisfactorily as a Peace Corps Volunteer. His service ended on August 10th, 2007. He is therefore eligible to be appointed as a career­conditional employee in the competitive civil service on a non-competitive basis. This benefit under the Executive Order entitlement extends for a period of one­year, except that the employing agency may extend for up to three years for a former Volunteer who enters military service, pursues studies at a recognized institution of higher learning or engages in other activities which, the view of the appointing authority, warrants extension of the period.

Pursuant to section 5 (f) of the Peace Corps Act, 2~ U.S.C 2504 (f) as amended, any former Volunteer employed by the United States Government folloV\ring his/her Peace Corps Service is entitled to have any pel'iod of satisfactory Peace Corps Volunteer Service credited for purposes of retirement, seniority, reduction in force, leave and other pTivileges based on length of Government service. Peace Corps shall not be credited toward completion of the probationa1y or trial period or completion of any requirement for career appointment

Privacy Act Notice: The information requested herein is collected pursuant to Section s of the Peace Corps Act (22 USC 2504 (f) ). The information will be used exclusively to prepare the Description of Volunteer Service Statement.

&h/or Jini ·a1· Dati I eaG~ Corps Country Director

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

~EACECORl'S 0 Does Not Have

An Official ~ SealOrStamr' Date Pe.ace Corps Volunteer Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia