Meet Ganaa, the woman behind Mongolia's first hyperlocal journalism platform
Songino.info, serving a community of 320 thousand as Mongolia's first ever hyperlocal journalism platform, was created through Nest Mongolia's incubation project.
Poverty rate of 50 percent, unemployment at every household, economic and environmental crisis, severe health conditions.
Songinokhairkhan is Ulaanbaatar’s biggest district. Its official population counts at 320 thousand, but officials know that the actual number of residents here is much higher as it is a suburban area where newcomers (people moving to Ulaanbaatar from rural areas to seek better living standards) do not have themselves officially registered.
This is where Ganaa (Gandolgor Bat) works. She has made it her passion to use information as a tool to help residents of the area to lift themselves out of poverty by getting employed. She hopes to achieve this through her www.songino.info platform and its Facebook page. “If the journalism theories we’ve studied are true, we should be able to utilize journalism to alleviate people out of poverty”, Ganaa believes.
Photo: songino.info homepage
The number of local government beneficiaries has risen to 74% of all registered residents in the past four years and government spending has grown by 67% in Songinokhairkhan, making welfare the main source of livelihood for the residents.
“We are trying to influence this through the exchange of information and to help people find employment and income security. Our task is to provide content that affects the perspective and attitude of this group and motivates them to start work” Ganaa says.
Photo: Gandolgor presents Songino.info project at the graduation ceremony of the “Steppe-ing Forward” Project, through which the platform was born.
Ganaa and her partner Oyunbayar are the entire Songino.info team and together, they have grown closer to the community in the few months following their establishment.
They are now working to influence businesses that are located in the district to make jobs more accessible for the residents of the district and embed capacity building components for new employees. Songino.info is planning to host a job fair spanning all or most businesses in the area to showcase their job openings and explain their recruitment process in late May.
Photo: A dedicated menu for new job postings at songino.info website.
“When people have been out of work for long, it seems to be even more difficult for them to integrate as part of the workforce and the drop out rate is higher” Ganaa shares, based on her experience of working with the community in the past half year.
“We are not a recruitment agency. But we can bring people close enough to want to get a job through information and make job postings more accessible to them. Also within our scope, is to influence businesses to help new employees integrate in the work force better and make their work environments friendlier. It is also our duty to help businesses understand their social responsibility to help make the community better”.
Songino.info has made this their editorial priority to build awareness around employment for 2023, but also on their agenda is to influence policy makers address the environmental and health crisis in this area.
The main water treatment facility is located in this district and has been operating above its capacity for while. As all media organizations only address issues around the Parliament building, not enough has been done to demand action. The chemicals oozing out of the facility has had major health consequences in the area.
To Ganaa and Oyunbayar, it’s important to continue to do what they set out for, but the challenges exist. Since the project funding from Steppe-ing forward ended, they have not been able to secure additional funding. So the project is at a risk of becoming their passion project rather than a sustainable business.
I am hoping to use this newsletter as a way to connect entrepreneurs like Ganaa with potential funders so that they can continue to do the important work.
Please leave a comment if you are interested in them and would like to learn more about their operation.
About the Steppe-ing forward project
Steppe-ing forward project was Nest’s attempt to prove that funding and supporting passionate media entrepreneurs is worth it and can help provide readers with the information they need and want.
The project was supported by the Spirit of America, a US based NGO, in collaboration with People in Need, Mongolia. We implemented the main activities in 2022, and incubated 4 media startups.
Songino.info was one of them and we will continue to introduce the others as well as other promising media projects that serve for democracy and human rights in Mongolia.