Saku

Sarankhukhuu Sharavdorj (Saku) is a young Mongolian feminist who has gained extensive experience in human rights, gender equality, sexual and reproductive health and rights, feminist movement building, national human rights protection mechanism, the regional and global mechanism for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and media advocacy. She served as Information/Foreign Relations Officer at MONFEMNET and Program Manager of the Human Rights Protection and Advocacy Program at Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD), between 2015 and 2020. Her work at CHRD included deep involvement in APWLD’s work on monitoring and reviewing SDGs. She is currently the Communications Officer at the Mongolian Women’s Fund.

APWLD interviewed Saku in January 2021 and below is her story.

Becoming a feminist and women human rights defender

In 2015, I joined the MONFEMNET National Network. Before that, I had never heard of civil society organisations (CSOs) or the feminist movement. It was my first experience, and I was like, “Oh, this is the ideal job that I want to do my entire life!” and I found myself as a feminist on the very first day of working there. At MONFEMNET, I learned many things about gender equality. I realised that I experienced gender issues in a corporation I used to work for. 

After I left MONFEMNET in 2018, I volunteered to be involved in its projects until CHRD offered me the job of programme manager for the Human Rights Protection Programme in 2019. I have since found the regional and global feminist movements, and their experiences have motivated and inspired me.

CHRD updated its strategy based on lessons learned from the SDG monitoring project in 2020, adding a programme to strengthen the movements for fairness, which is almost like a way to achieve Development Justice. We still face structural challenges, however. A shrinking space is a structural barrier faced not only by CSOs in Mongolia, but across the globe, and I hope that we can unite to fight these kinds of challenges.

Growing together with APWLD

My engagement in the SDGs project, supported by APWLD, motivated me to improve, and I was surprised that they gave me so many opportunities to improve my English skills. I was not confident in speaking English, thus I couldn’t help my colleagues with drafting or note-taking. However, APWLD helped me to overcome these challenges. I will never forget the moment that Rina from APWLD first said that they were looking for someone to read the statement during The Fifth Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development. I remember Rina said, “How about the girl from Mongolia?” I was like, “What?” She didn’t even know my name, but she offered me the opportunity to speak in such a forum.

I said I wasn’t sure whether I could read the statement on behalf of this women’s constituency. They encouraged me by saying that I wouldn’t have to write it, just read it. So I prepared to read the statement and practised with my roommate, Kala Peiries from Sri Lanka, who reminded me not to worry. She’s just like my sister, always taking care of me. I looked in the mirror and kept practising the words because many were words I had never seen and read before. It was very challenging, but I wanted to do it. APWLD presented me with many similar opportunities and really built my confidence. I’m proud of myself.

Through the strategy of AHA (Anger, Hope, Action), APWLD helped me to increase my confidence, overcome my challenges, and inspire me. As a result, whenever I think about something, I try to determine what makes me angry, what gives me hope, and what to do next. 

APWLD has also given me a lot of skills and knowledge in feminist movement building. Media advocacy is the first takeaway that impressed me. During the first media advocacy workshop, Neha Gupta, the former Information and Communications Officer of APWLD, taught me a lot and facilitated a media advocacy workshop during the people’s forum. Since then, I have been using media advocacy skills for my work. As an example, I was able to be part of the media advocacy working group at High Level Political Forum 2019 to make posters. Upon my return to Mongolia, I volunteered with young people from civil society to work on policy advocacy using the media advocacy skills that I gained from APWLD.

Together with other young activists, we started the social media campaign “Youth participation in the Constituency Amendments” for the Amendment of Constituency in August 2019. Before that, young people had no information about the proposed amendments to the Constituency. I volunteered to become the team leader of the social media campaign and created the posters based on what I learned from APWLD. 

The crucial parts of constituency amendments include judiciary independence, and a power dynamic shift of government and the Parliament. Initially, we organised a series of discussions regarding the concept of the Constituency Amendments. After the discussions, we decided to focus on the part of the independence of the judiciary. It took 3 months for the 1st phase of the Youth Campaign. We used Facebook and Twitter for the advocacy and worked independently. After three months, the amendment of the Constituency was approved by the Parliament and our focus moved to the independence of the judiciary in the Constituency Amendment. The youth campaign continued until its 3rd phase regarding the independence of the judiciary which was our focus since the beginning. Recently (early 2021), we also had a team working on the judiciary law amendment regarding the Constituency amendments and followed up the implementation process.

Connecting SDGs to the communities in Mongolia

In Mongolia, APWLD initiated a fellowship programme that helped journalists write articles, and this programme supported CHRA’s writing capacity-building efforts. CHRD had never written an article for its website before the national campaign we conducted. But after that, we produced articles. We analysed how gender equality is related to poverty based on the knowledge learned from the SDGs project.

To implement the SDGs project better, CHRD launched a program in 2004, which helps connect communities across provinces and form its strategic tree. According to the strategy tree, CHRD’s goal is to build and increase the capacity of local communities to be engaged in this decision-making process at different levels. Consequently, we needed to assist communities in defining their priority issues.

First, we organised a workshop in the capital city to let the community define these key issues. We introduced the SDGs and let them decide which issues are most important to them. As I recall, one of them chose poverty, while two others selected labour. Those are linked to each other. Then we visited communities and conducted workshops to introduce the SDGs and how they are measured by collecting the data on all of these issues. 

After community workshops, we built platforms comprised of our community members and state officials from local authorities. Getting the information from the local authority was very beneficial for community members, as they could not find it easily on the internet. In addition, we found that even the local authorities were not biased against the SDGs. In the SDG project, both local authorities and communities realised that they needed to be involved in this process. Our communities also knew what they wanted, adapting our knowledge and skills.

In addition, we encouraged local authorities to participate in the SDG process. We nominated some State Governors to the sub-regional SDG forum, for example. Local governors from the target community which chose poverty participated in the North-East Asian sub-regional forum on Sustainable Development Goals which was held in Vladivostok, Russia in 2019. After that, they started to give more support to our community groups on the SDG monitoring process.

Continuing my feminist journey

Recently, I resigned from CHRD and applied for a scholarship program to study gender and media. I’m planning on engaging with young feminists after graduating with a master’s degree and creating a support group for young women.

Maybe in the future, I will engage with APWLD to strengthen the young feminist movement. That’s what I have been thinking about for the last two years. I’m visualising and designing how to make it happen. 

As of 2022, I have joined the Mongolian Women’s Fund. My willingness to support feminist movement building in Mongolia made me accept the offer to work as its Communications Officer. 

All I know is that wherever I go, whatever I do, the feminist values and principles I gained from my engagement with APWLD and other fellow feminists will be the priority. Because I was there and felt the people’s power when they were united, and mobilised, raising their voices and marching for system change.