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布里坦妮•尼斯带领的儿童俱乐部为一个贫困家庭捐赠食品、木材和礼物。

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Peace Corps volunteer Brittany Neace and one of her youth groups celebrate White Month, a traditional Mongolian holiday.

Washington — Peace Corps volunteer Brittany Neace of Knoxville, Tennessee, and her Mongolian community are renovating a youth resource center to provide nearly 200 children with access to computers and other educational materials.

“There is an allocated room for children, but it is in need of serious repairs to fix the crumbling walls, chipping paint, collapsing ceiling, and the floors need updating,” said Neace, who has been working as a community development volunteer in eastern Mongolia since June 2010.

“Through organized clubs and activities, children will have a more enriched education that will help prepare them to be Mongolia’s next generation. With the additional resources such as computers, they will be not only more prepared but have more skills to help them be competitive in this evolving society,” Neace said in a March 20 USAID release.

The resource room will provide a comfortable environment for children to study, complete their homework, and learn how to use a computer. The resource center will be staffed by specialists who will work with the youth. The center will also be a place for children’s clubs to meet regularly.

A portion of the funds for the resource center is being raised through the Peace Corps Partnership Program, which supports Peace Corps volunteer community projects worldwide.

The local community will pay for the labor to repair the room and equipment and transportation costs. Funds raised through the Partnership Program will be used for repair materials, computers, tables, chairs, bookshelves, one television, a printer and a sofa.

To receive funding through the Partnership Program, a community must make a 25 percent contribution to the total project and outline success indicators for the individual projects. This helps ensure community ownership and a greater chance of long-term sustainability.

More than 930 Peace Corps volunteers have served in Mongolia since the program was established in 1991. Currently, 136 volunteers serve there. Volunteers work in the areas of English education, community development, health and economic development. Volunteers are trained and work in Mongolian and Kazakh.