-First of all please introduce yourself to our readers.
-My name is Mark Koenig. I`ve been the Country representative of The Asia Foundation Mongolia for almost five years now. I have been in international development for around 15 years, mostly with The Asia Foundation. I`ve been working in regional roles, doing urban governance advisory work, and strategic planning in the Foundation all across 18 country offices.

I am a father of a 5-year-old daughter, and being a father is a big part of my life. And I am an American citizen. But I`ve lived more than half of my life abroad at this point. 

-Is that mostly in Asia?
-When I was younger I lived in Europe, Germany, England, and Switzerland. As an adult, I lived in China, Thailand, Japan, and Mongolia.       

-Can you share with us about your childhood? Where have you studied?
-I was born in the Midwest, in Missouri. When I turned 10, my mother became a diplomat. It was quite an interesting change for the family. My mother, then about 40 years old, changed her career. She took the test and passed. So we moved to Germany and then Switzerland. I finished high school in Switzerland, then returned to the US for an undergraduate degree. I studied political science and graduated from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Then for a couple of years, I was a teacher in China before doing my master`s degree at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. I chose  international development and international relations for my master’s degree.     

-You have been living in Ulaanbaatar for four years. Which part of the city do you like to visit the most? What places would you recommend to people? 
-Obviously, one of the amazing things about Ulaanbaatar is its proximity to nature. I really like the hidden gem called Selbe headwaters. It`s a locally protected area, about 45 minutes north in the summer camp area. There is a beautiful little spot area near the Selbe river in the hills. It`s really pristine. As The Asia Foundation, we worked with the City`s department of environment to explore trail building in this area. I went out there and really enjoyed that.     

Since my first visit to Mongolia 10 years ago, dining, music, and shopping options have expanded significantly. I, my wife and daughter have different favorite restaurants to eat at in Ulaanbaatar. We are quite excited to have Mexican food, also the Italian food is fantastic. We quite like places with outside patios like Terraza.

It is a wonderful city for walking. I think some of the downtown neighborhoods downtown have really interesting architecture and history piled on top of each other. I highly encourage any visitor to take the time to get out of the car and walk to see different layers of Ulaanbaatar`s history.  

-You have been living in Mongolia since being assigned as the Country Representative. But you have visited many times even before this assignment. What attracts you to Mongolia the most?
-I have really loved my time getting to know Mongolia. I made more than 30 visits before moving here, as an advisor with The Asia Foundation. Mongolia is an amazing country. One of the things that makes me excited professionally is how open and frank conversations around development in Mongolia are. There is an openness in the Government, civil society, and private sector to new ideas and possible options to help to improve Mongolian development.

I  have a great appreciation for the youth of Mongolia. The high capacity, young population who have increasingly global ambitions and big ideas. This energy makes ita great pleasure to work with many of our excellent partners. That is one of the things really exciting about Mongolia. And as a culture, the amazing resilience of the Mongolian people is always inspiring. It is one of the hardest places to live on earth probably.

-Do you mean in terms of climate?
-Yes. Also the challenges of a landlocked country. Yet it has an amazing history. I find the attitude, and the approach of Mongolian people to challenges they face to be encouraging and refreshing, a model for many societies. That makes me proud to be associated with Mongolia in my own small way. 

WE WANT TO THINK OF CHANGING THE DYNAMIC AROUND WHY AND HOW WE READ

-Please tell us about your role as a Country Representative?    
-The Asia Foundation has over 30 years of history in Mongolia, working with so many Mongolians both in governments and civil societies. It is a big responsibility to maintain a good quality program.

My daily work is quite wide-ranging. Networking and relationship development, as well as relationship management with the Government, donors, partners, and civil society is important. Beneficiaries are also important. I spend a lot of time listening. Listen to the challenges, listen to the needs, and try to figure out how the Asia Foundation can meet the needs of Mongolia. A lot of my job is also management, we have a team of 40 people working on a wide range of topics.

It is my role to ensure our financial management is clean and clear, and to make sure our team has direction and vision. I monitor to make sure that project implementation is going as planned, but also that we are being flexible to new demands. This requires a lot of engagement with the team and a focus on communication and keeping people motivated. I think the other piece of it is visioning and fundraising. Our organization has its own funds that we distribute, but we also implement bilateral aid programs as well. So in order to make sure that we generate new ideas, we have to be constantly talking with our partners, listening to what those needs are, trying to address them, finding pools for money and bilateral aid world, and hopefully bringing them to Mongolia to implement helpful projects.

So as the Country Representative it is a kind of catalyst, like moving around, listening, talking, problem-solving, brainstorming. Also trying to help our team with the implementation of the projects. In general, The Asia Foundation is most successful when we combine best practice ideas with understanding  of Mongolia’s real needs What is possible in Mongolia? That requires a lot of humility, listening, and understanding of the partners. So I do spend the overwhelming majority of my time meeting, talking to people, and understanding what solutions to Mongolia`s challenges could be, and how can the Asia Foundation play a role in finding and supporting the solution.

-Do you focus only in UB? 
-We are operational mainly in Ulaanbaatar. But our projects can be much broader. For example, we have a branch for the women's business center in Uvurkhangai province. We have projects supporting responses to illegal mining, with a team based in Selenge. So we do work around the country. A lot of our work is with national-level partners and the Government, so we also spend a lot of time in Ulaanbaatar. It changes  yearto-year, and our programs always changing. Sometimes we have more projects in aimags, sometimes less, depending on the  projects we are operating. But our ambition is to have a national impact as far as possible.     

-TAF is one of the very first international non-profit NGO to operate in Mongolia. Would you please briefly share the projects The Asia Foundation implementing now and their goals? 
-The Asia Foundation has a wide range of projects. Right now we have five core areas of focus. One is good governance and citizen engagement. We work with partners in Government to find ways to engage citizens and civil society to provide good policy deliberations and outcomes. And think through how we can improve transparency, accountability, and public service delivery. 

The second is Urban Governance. We have been a partner with the Municipality of Ulaanbaatar for quite some time. We work on important issues such as the deconcentration of public services, making them more accessible at all levels as well as capacity building for civil servants.

The third major area we focus on is Women`s Economic Empowerment. The Asia Foundation has a long history of supporting Mongolia to be a leader in gender equality. Currently, we are focusing on economic empowerment which means supporting women entrepreneurs. Also supporting policies that may encourage more women to join and stay in the workforce. We work closely with the national committee on gender equality as well as civil society organizations, and private sector actors.

The fourth area is the Environment. Currently, we have an initiative on climate change, looking at the waste sector, and similar small projects on renewable energy. Also, we are looking at illegal mining. Damage was done to forests, and water by unregulated mining. We are working with partners to encourage better regulation and better monitoring.

Finally, we have a long history of working with books and reading. 30 years ago one of our first programs was importing and donating large amounts of English language books to Mongolia, it’s called the Books for Asia program. We did it across the region, and we still do book donations today. But recently our program evolved to focus more on the mother tongue language, the Mongolian language. We are trying to hone in on young readers aged 0-5 to stimulate a life-long love of reading. Also, to take advantage of the fact that children`s brains develop very quickly between the ages of 0-3.

The more language you provide them, the more they receive and learn, and the books are a great tool for that. Better prospects in school, and emotional intelligence are among the wide range of benefits of reading. So “Let`s read” is one of our core initiatives now. It may seem fun and soft, but actually, if you read with young children, there is a study that suggests that it can increase  IQ by up to 6 points. If you think of the long-term impact for economic development in GDP, small increase in the average IQ of a country can have a massive impact on actual economic growth, potential productivity, performance at school and overseas studies. 

-Can you tell us about the Let`s Read Mongolia project? Why has the Asia Foundation decided to implement this project, and what are its goals? And what activities are being implemented within the scope of  the project?
-This initiative was developed based on engagement with long-term partners in Mongolia, and have designed the project based on the perceived needs. So this current ‘Lets Read’ is a recent redesign of our ‘Books for Asia’ initiative that has been donating books for 30 years. So we started by asking the question, what is the challenge for Mongolia? 

 Increasingly, we are finding that parents think that it is the school's job to teach their kids to read. Parents seem to think that reading with their kids is about teaching and not about the benefits of reading and hearing language and spending time together. Data suggests there are many challenges for school readiness, which perhaps indicates that parent and caregiver behavior, as opposed to only the performance of early childhood education institutions, is contributing to this problem. These observations were the basis for the redesign of our reading projects.

The Asia Foundation does not have ato-do list, we start by listening, exploring, and designing what we think will have the highest impact. Then we find partners who see the same vision. The final design of “Let`s read” has huge potential if we can encourage Mongolian parents to think of reading in a new way with their children, especially from age 0-3.

If you look at the way a child’s brain develops, 80% of the brain develops between 0-3. But there`s a misconception that we read with our children to teach them to read. But that`s a narrow understanding of the benefits of reading. If you sit with your child, the first thing you are trying to do is provide a rich language environment, which can strengthen cognitive development. The more words a child hears leads to a higher rate of brain development, and more stimulation, which leads to a richer vocabulary, and a better sense of understanding of the world. All the time parents and children spends together with a book or with a toy can lead to more confidence, more creativity, and a healthier parent-child relationship. 

There is an emotional impact, that`s quite positive. If you think of the shapes and colors in a book, those also stimulate a child`s brain from birth. An infant can see shapes and colors, and even their eyes are developing. Books can stimulate them and their brain works hard to understand it, and that kind of growth creates a massive opportunity to improve the long-term outcomes for our children.

So we want to think of changing the dynamic around why and how we read. It`s not about teaching, it`s about fun, it`s about engaging children about stimulating them. And books are a wonderful tool. You can have almost the same impact on language development just by talking to your child constantly. It`s the same, you wanna have more words that your child hears to help them stimulate their brain and get them to understand how language works. But to do that you need to use a wide range of vocabulary. Most people use a limited number of words in their daily interactions and a book takes you into new words, and new concepts. The second thing a book does is it can help you to explain things that are happening with your young child, explain how the world works, how emotions work, it can help them understand empathy, and it can help them understand cause and effect. The person did this and this was the impact.
 

The story is a string of causes and effects and all of these different inputs held in their storytelling in books are very useful to help a child develop. And again books are not the only way to do it. You can verbally tell stories. It has a wonderful impact. But after a long work day, books can help you . It is quite challenging as a parent, if you are tired, to tell a story for 15 minutes. But reading a book is fun for you too. Books help you concentrate, you put your phone down, whatever you are doing, you really focus on your child. So the impacts are massive. 

We chose the age 0-3 in part because we picked up on several misconceptions. Books are not only for teaching kids to read. No. books are there as a guide to life, to help explain the world around them, give them different perspectives, and introduce them to colors and shapes, joy sadness, and emotions. Children who are read to at young ages are more likely to be good readers when they grow up. It does not mean you cannot read with your child when they are 6 or 7 years old. But those who start earlier achieve more benefits. 

So we are very excited. A lot of early childhood education programs focus on what schools and pre-schools can deliver, but we are going to focus more on parents and caregivers and spending time together with children. We do believe by creating more readers early in life we will positively impact the well-being of children. There are a lot of surveys showing that readers are happier. Development is not just about dollars and cents, it is about something we call human flourishing. It is about everyone in the world having the opportunity to flourish, to feel good, to enjoy their lives, and to be fulfilled.  

The project campaign “15 minutes” is more like a slogan. If you read for 2 hours, that is great. If you read 10 minutes a day, that is better than nothing. 15 minutes as a figure captures the idea that there is a commitment, but it is not a massive commitment. It is something that most parents should be able to manage. We understand the demands of modern life. People are busy, especially in tough economic times, some work multiple jobs. We all know how much time we lose in traffic. At the same time, think of how much time we spend on our phones.

If I tell you, you could change your child`s life with an investment of 15 minutes a day. Most parents say that is something I can do. But I need to be reminded, I need to be supported, I need to have the community if I feel a little bit slow, that says `Come on, this is important.’ Also, it has to be fun to engage my child. 15 minutes campaign is supposed to be a reminder, and a call to action, but also a tool to support the community.

You can see other people who go through the same thing, making the same commitment, and are getting excited about the positive outcomes for the children. There is a lot of science behind the concept of reading. Some data will show you that children that have 3 books with them every day will hear 1 million vocabulary words over the first five years. One million words mean that the child is ready for school. Kids who read a book a day are more likely to know how to count to 20, and more likely to write their names. 

We are asking everyone in our orbit, to make that commitment for themselves and share those commitments with others. Hopefully inspire all Mongolian families to try and provide this time for the future of their children, ultimately for the country`s development. 

 Everyone in our project, I think is a believer themselves. There is nothing I love more than going home and reading with my 5 years old daughter. Memories we have reading together, are some of the best memories in my life. I am really excited for other families to have explored that to ace those experiences to do. Among our staff and partners, like `Whyze` agency that runs the campaign, you can hear stories about what they are reading and some of the benefits you can see with their kids. I think we just want to share that to make sure everybody supports each other to introduce this change. And again with technology the world is changing. We are connected to screens everywhere. It is so hard to unplug and focus. 

 Books and stories are really wonderful ways to sack you out of there. They can take you everywhere. I think that is the kind of joy we need even more. In this information-heavy world, we are just bombarded all the time. We just released a TV commercial that captures that very nicely. It shows the business of life, an almost meditated aspect of time concentrated with your child. And the book is a fantastic tool to overcome all that stress. 

THE LIBRARY SYSTEM IS NOT AS DEVELOPED HERE AS IT IS IN SOME OTHER COUNTRIES

-When did you launch this campaign?
-We started soft launch a few months ago. The project started a year ago. We are working with a few ger areas, and partners like Ger Hub NGO and Mongolian Education Alliance NGO which do more community engagement. We are working with Whyze Agency on our campaign. We did some research on the current habits of Mongolian families, and we found that less than 10 percent of parents with 0-5-year-olds are reading books every day with their children. So there is a huge potential to improve. We also are going increasingly work with policymakers, hopefully with hospitals, with kindergartens, anybody who like to join to find ways to facilitate more reading. 

-Did you face any challenges whilst running the campaign? 
-As part of it we do acknowledge sometimes the challenges with finding high-quality books in the Mongolian language. To address that challenge we are trying to work with publishing companies to create some new books. Also, we do have a digital library, it is called the “Let`s read” accessible in website and application, of which right now has more than 100 books in Mongolian language, and anyone can read for free.

Over the next few months, we’d love to reach that number to 200 and 300. Any parent, no matter what their income can have access to books, we do know it can be quite expensive if you buy a new book for your kid every week. The library system is not as developed here as it is in some other countries. We hope our application is also a tool to make stories more accessible in the Mongolian language. 

So far we have been happy with the feedbacks. One of the initiatives is a Storytime which we are trying to make `Story time`  every week somewhere in UB whether it is in a bookstore, whether it is outside during summer.

To design a model of reading, people are trained to be a good reader.  They do physical movements, sing a song, may ask questions about the book. It is also a design just to create a culture of reading. Any parents whose children love can book, who does not love books yet can bring to `Story time` and get them involved, get them excited.

When you have story times, you can see how much grip the kid's attention. We have a storyteller, who ring the bell, claps their hand and tells the story. Even the wildest kid sit and watch, be quiet and talk to their parents afterward. They say `We haven`t seen that quite before. I`ve never seen to sit for a whole story is very exciting. When they see their kids engaging with a book, if they do at home, it can be transformative. And say my child does not like to read. But I believe in right sitting with enough practice every child on earth does like books. They may not like the way you do. There are a lot of ways to read a book. You can do serious, you can use your voice, you can even jump around, and you can ask questions. So finding a way can help your child to engage with books. Something any parent can do. Any child can respond to. The feedbacks at `Story times` are most rewarding. 

We were at the launch event for `Let`s read`. I was among the people who were asked to make a speech. And about 50 kids were playing with balloons and it was loud, they would not stop while I am talking. But then our Story time reader started to read the book, and suddenly it was quiet.

We also have some of the community partners, and they told us a story about a kid who was not verbal at the start of the project, and after 6 months of coming to `Story time` she feels more comfortable with the language. Our readers could see changes in the way they interact, talk and share. When parents see that is one of the most exciting things.

If we say `2 hours campaign` people would say `I cannot do that`, as we all can do 15 minutes of reading. But it does not mean always easy. I am a parent myself, and have to manage my time. As parent you have to get the kids in bed, and cook the dinner etc. But as a someone with a comfortable financial situation I have less restrains. But if you have multiple jobs, and if you travel it can be hard. But it is a commitment we can make, if we put energy to it.

For us, this project will continue for 10 years. This is not a 6-months campaign, we would like to work with our partners for 10 years. Right now we have a three-year partnership with the Lorinet  Foundation, which is a private foundation that supports most of our works. As for the Asia Foundation we hope to continue the project for longer term. Over that much time, we can do really rapid change in culture reading with young children. 

-Are you planning to implement this campaign in the national level?
-We are starting in UB, as we have limited funding. So currently we generate the momentum. But “Let`s read” digital library is available anywhere, anybody can reach it. Obviously, our social media campaign can be accessed and engaged anywhere. But as we go forward, certainly we like to learn and expand it and consider how we can do that. We are doing `Story time` linked to other projects. For example, as I mentioned before, we have a Women`s Business Center in Uvurkhangai, and one of the things we do for women who come for training is we offer `Story time for their children. We hope to expand programs further. 

The Asia Foundation is not the biggest NGO in the world, but we do the best with what resources we have. But we hope to expand our partnerships so that Mongolian partners who want to join this movement can learn from the experiences, engage with the materials, benefit from the greater supply of the books and take that to the community where ever they are. It does not take a lot of money to change this behavior. We need to increase the access the books. But it is a challenge. Mostly the spirit. We also hope to launch a volunteer reading club. Right now `Story time` is hosted by trained, semi-professionals. They are getting very experienced. We also hope to launch a reading club and practice Story time.

-And what activities are being implemented within this project in overall?
-For the “Let`s Read Mongolia” project, we have 5 core activities. One is on the community engagement, we have two community partners working closely with two ger areas to see experiments and pilot in a different way of stimulating and promote of reading. 

Second is access to books. We are translating the books and making them accessible in the digital library. We also work with Mongolian artists, authors, and illustrators to produce more local books. We planned to start partnerships with publishing houses. Publishing houses face a lot of challenges given the small size of the language of the market. So it is really to figure out how NGO`s like us and private publishing houses can collaborate to access the books.

The third is our `Story time’, currently Azkhur, Internom are our partners as well. You can check the date of `Story time` on our website and social media posts. We did a story time during Playtime. Any parent who loves to read can come out with their kids and see other kids enjoy reading, see the newest books and have fun. Even if you have an infant can come and see as well.

The fourth piece of it is our social media campaigning. We are working with `Whyze` agency to expand our ideas and be ambitious. This campaign includes TV programs, advertisements. We always try to figure out how to reach more parents and convince them.

The last thing we are trying to do is a really heavy policy and research piece. Cross all these initiatives we are trying to research and track the impact of reading on children learning outcomes. So doing assessments. We have done an initial base survey to make sure everything is data-driven. We back up the science to show this leads to better outcomes on children. We work with an independent institute of Mongolia. We did a representative survey of UB. We also over-sampled the community where we are working. Did we ask parents why are not reading daily with kids? From the survey, you can see a few things.

First, a lot of parents felt that kids are getting familiar with books at school. Schools are doing it which is a misunderstanding of the roles of the parents and schools. Most schools would say parents should lead early reading and pre-reading skills development. Because one-to-one attention is very important. Schools cannot do it if you have 50-60 kids in a classroom. It cannot be able to do that. So parents, caregivers, grandparents, and older siblings can do lot.

The second thing interesting in a survey was that knowledge of when and why we should read was a bit different from science. They deem to think kid`s best time start to read at 3-5 years old which implies they were reading books to reach them to read rather than have a broader understanding of pre-reading skills, vocabulary, thinking about stories, shapes, colors. The book can open the whole world if you start earlier. A lot of Mongolian parents did not realize the beneficiary to start to read from 0. I understand the logic. Why would I read to the kid? It does not know how to read. They cannot to read from 0. It does not mean they cannot benefit when reading aloud together.

The last thing is 70 percent of the parents said `I do not have time. I`m busy. It`s difficult to find a time. That`s why we say 15 minutes a day, even one story a day will create hundreds of vocabularies. And the impact of one story a day is immense. So while we want to be symptomatic to parents. We want to understand the challenges of modern life. 15 minutes a day is not too much to ask. When you fully understand positive benefits it should help more parents to commit and make an investment.                      

We did see in the survey quite a few people say I do not read my child because somebody else does it. Fatherhood is a complex topic worldwide. In Mongolia too. Expectations of fathers are a bigger subject. We think books and reading is a kind of soft entry. 15 minutes is achievable, more time a father may spend the more my transform the broader outlook on the parent.   

We hope to work with Ministry, local government offices to see we how can support them to integrate early childhood reading into their plans. We are doing example in one khoroo a piloting a book-ger which is just a room in a khoroo`s governance office where there are books for the space for kids to come and read. We are trying this kind of model to see if it is replicable. So it is quite an abroad project. We hope all these pieces together can really build a movement to the community, people working to promote and share their experiences. 

THE BOOK CAN ADD MUCH MORE TO LIFE

-Can you share your experience? Is it common to read with kids every night in American families?                
 -I come from a family of readers. My parents are both journalists. My personal experience is kind of crazy, during dinners we all wanted to read books. I have three siblings. My older sister is a librarian, she dedicated her career to this topic. One of the great features of the American reading landscape is our public libraries. We have an amazing public library system in most locations in America. In most neighborhoods, you have a library we can go to for events. Spaces are wonderful to engage parents and children. For a lot of young parents who have young children, the library is a good place to get out of the house to meet people and to engage with books. I think that the public library system is a big part of the story success we may have promoting reading. 
 
If you look at different studies, the number of families reading daily with their children in the US is probably 4-5 times higher than in Mongolia according to our recent survey. In America it is quite common to read daily with your young children. That has been developed through years of investment in the library system. Schools do reading programs and competitions, we also have a really rich publishing environment that benefits from the English language focus. And I think those are all benefits.  

However, the digital era is creating challenges for everyone. It is hard to manage your screen time, and to concentrate on reading. We can process a lot more information very quickly, but concentration and depth are sometimes lacking. We can be quite distracted in the modern digital world. I think publishing, and reading are talked about a lot in America. We do still invest in bookstores, and libraries despite these challenges and it creates a fantastic advantage.

My family lives as readers. We have taken that forward to my daughter. As I said before, reading together,  she can laugh, can feel empathy. I`ve seen her cry during the sad part of a story or share the joy of the character. I remember when she was very young, for the first time we used to read a book about the moon when she was an infant. When the moon made that connection, it was very exciting. It was one of her early stories. The moment she saw the real moon, she used to say moon, and she pointed to it. The book and real life come together. It was one of my most exciting parental moments. I still remember. We were driving across a railway track here in UB going home. That moment was magical.

The book can add much more to life. They can help you go through sad things, they can bring you joy. I really hope that programs can help bring more people into the global community of readers.

-Do you read with your daughter yourself or your wife?
 -Absolutely yes. We read probably an hour a day. Because we love it. From the moment my wife was pregnant we used to read to our daughter when she was not even born yet. My wife and I enjoy it. I think the secret is to have fun. Children`s books are wonderful, a good children's book has colors, pictures, and stories. You can enjoy as a parent, be silly when the book is silly, feel empathy when it is sad. Reading can both be a service to your child, but also a fun activity to do together. Sometimes I feel like I am reading for myself, at the end of a difficult day. When we read a book, I feel better. We have seen in our case how reading impacts her development, she came to school ready to read. She`s in kindergarten this year and she is doing well. 

There are pre-reading skills that we need to work on with kids before they can learn to read. Things like just understanding the concept, those symbols of words, symbols create language. You do not have to teach a kid to read it right away, but even if they are very young they can start to understand. That is what that is, those words, those sentences. Do not rush. Just touching, tactile, and moving the pages make them the pre-reading skill. If children develop pre-reading skills before they get to school, they develop  their reading abilities that much more quickly. So it is an investment that can help school readiness in a way that can give your child the opportunity to take advantage of the school.  
       
-How will the impacts of this project be measured?
 -We conduct a perception survey. We are planning to repeat that every 3-4 years. Through that, we hope to see more families reading every day with their children and more parents with knowledge of the benefits of reading. The second thing we are going to do is an assessment of school readiness. So with 1st grade students, we check where they are on literacy and numeracy. Over the years we hope to see more access to books and increased reading in that community, and we will see the impact on school readiness. We are working with kindergartens, parents, and libraries. All of these support the ecosystem and should yield some major benefits in terms of children`s cognitive abilities once they reach Grade 1. So again we want to be very scientific. We have many indicators, how many read daily with kids, and how many people engage with social media posts. The most important thing is to measure the benefit to children and families, and with these data tools we hope to have really strong validation in the data.  
 
Obviously not all improvements can be traced to The Asia Foundation’s efforts alone. For example, major improvements in kindergarten will help school readiness as well. So we need to be aware of the context.
                      
-Thank you for the interview.  
Thank you for inviting me.

Photos by G.Unubold