“Establishing School-based Child Protection Mechanism in Mongolia” project published a success story book in English and Mongolian

Save the Children Mongolia Office successfully implemented the project  “Establishing School-Based Child Protection Mechanisms”,  generously funded by Save the Children Hong Kong from 2023-2025. The project was carried out in 14 schools and 14 Multi-Disciplinary Teams in the Khan-Uul, Bayangol, Chingeltei, Sukhbaatar, and Bayanzurkh districts of Ulaanbaatar city, as well as Govi-Altai and Khovd aimags.

The project reached a total of 42,369 adults and 49,114 children. According to project monitoring, evaluation, and analysis, 79.4% of parent council members reported that there are opportunities to improve child protection through collaboration with schools. In addition, joint child protection service of  multi-disciplinary teams and schools increased by 3.5 percent.

Furthermore, 18,954 parents and caregivers participated in the “Safe Families” training as part of effort to strengthen family relationships, that is foundation of child protection. Following the training, 60% of participants reported positive changes in their parenting attitudes and practices.

According to the project’s baseline study, 68.7% of teachers used physical and emotional punishment toward children. By the endline survey, this figure had decreased significantly to 21.3%. Additionally, 72% of students answered that they no longer feel afraid of their teachers and are able to communicate openly with them, indicating the creation of a more child-friendly school environment.

The findings also showed that children have gained better knowledge and understanding of children’s rights, including how to recognize rights violations and where, how, and to whom to report them. Specifically, 72.05% of children stated that if their rights were violated, they would report the issue to their parents or caregivers, child protection organizations, teachers, or the school’s child protection team, as reflected in the survey results.

Furthermore, to strengthen school-based child protection mechanisms, the project developed and printed 16 different guidelines, accompanied by related capacity-building training. These training courses engaged more than 20,000 participants, including teachers and school staff, parents, children, and relevant specialists.

As a result, parents improved their capacity to support their children’s education, gained a better understanding and appreciation of teachers’ roles, and had more open and constructive communication with schools. Consequently, 55.8% of children reported that they are now able to freely express their thoughts and opinions to their parents, indicating strengthened family relationships and a more supportive environment for children’s well-being.

A total of 1,850 adolescents participated in the “I Support My Friends” program, which aimed to equip young people with skills to care for themselves and their peers while promoting psychological and mental well-being. Through the program, these adolescents were trained as peer supporters.

To share the knowledge and competencies they had gained with other students, the peer supporters developed and independently implemented 15 micro-projects, which received a total of 17,730,000 MNT in funding.

Over the three years of project implementation, many meaningful achievements were realized. Drawing from these successes,  a bilingual (Mongolian and English) book titled “Pathways to Child Protection,” has been published and shared with donors, partners, and the public.

The book features 28  stories of success from project-supported schools, highlighting the experiences and achievements of school project teams, principals, teachers, social workers, psychologists, and students. These stories are available to read in both Mongolian and English.

Please find the full version of the book at the link below.