Mercy Corps Mongolia

	LEARNING TO BE A MOTHER One day in 2009 a nurse called Ariunjargal heard about an initiative funded by FIELD. Local volunteers were to be selected and trained to give emotional and physical support to families with disabled children. Suddenly the nurse remembered a lovely quiet girl who was born deaf and mute. She just had to apply. Read more


	GANTUYA IS NOW PART OF A COMMUNITY AGAIN Gantuya lives in the Gobi in a town called Mandalgobi. Born in 1973 she grew up as a regular, healthy child and dreamed of becoming a contortionist. As a child she practiced very hard but everything changed at aged 13. A terrible accident injured her legs so badly that even walking was not possible. She was able to get to places and attend school only with the help of parents and teachers, who carried her around. Read more


	RELEASING POTENTIAL Being a successful engineer Enkhtaivan did not much worry about his future. Together with his wife, they had an above average income and in 2006 he was promoted to the Arkhangai branch head of a large Mongolian telecommunication company. But in a heedless moment in July of 2008 he slipped in his bath room and sustained a spinal injury with severe consequences. Read more


	ALTANGEREL USES MODERN VETERIAN DRUGS B.Altangerel (Altan) is one of the 30 percent of Mongolians who live as nomads and rely heavily on their livestock to survive. Before the 1990s, communist planning meant that livestock were government controlled, so herders did not have to manage animal health issues themselves. But after the collapse of communism in 1992 herding changed dramatically with all responsibilities falling to the unprepared and desperately poor herders. Most vet services for example, are no longer funded by the government. The result is unproductive and unhealthy animals while herders flounder helplessly. Read more


	MERCY CORPS SUPPORT FOR LOCAL PRIORITIES HELPS CLEAN UP TOWN Choir is a small town in the northern Gobi in Mongolia and the capital of the small and not even two decade old Gobi-Sumber aimag. Although it is situated on a major trading route between Ulaanbaatar and China, it struggles to find a position in Mongolia's economy. Mercy Corps organized a bagh assessment meeting in cooperation with local Civil Society Organizations, businesses and government members. Read more


	GIVING A PERSPECTIVE TO PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES Sandagsuren lived in Tsetserleg, the capital of Arkhangai and was a regular working man. But one day he had an accident with severe consequences. During his work he lost his right arm and was not able to work anymore. From this day one he started isolating himself from the rest of the world by staying home and doing nothing. Time went by and Sandagsuren was not happy with his situation. Eventually he got to know other people who have similar problems like him, and together they decided to found a Disabled People Organisation called “New Beginning”. As the name suggests their main purpose is to allow people with disablities to have a new start into life and society. Sandagsuren summarizes: “We wanted to be the voice of local disabled persons”. Byambasuren, a mother of a blind son, co-founded the NGO with him. Later Narangerel, a lady without hands and teacher joined. Additionally Khurelchuluun and Purevrsuren support “New Beginning” as accountants and project assistants. Read more


	BETTER SCHOOLS THROUGH PARENTS INVOLVEMENT Education has a high reputation for the Mongolian people and therefore it always played an important role in their life. Uranchimeg is a secondary school teacher for Mongolian language at School No.3 in Tsetserleg, the capitol of Arkhangai aimag. Through the years she noticed a lack of parents' participation. Education was believed to be the job of teachers, not of fathers and mothers. This routes back to communism times before the year of 1990, where government had a plan for everything and nobody has to worry. During that time lots of children stayed at residential school and teachers took care of them all day long. Read more


	HARD WORKING MAN IN THE COLDEST AIMAG OF MONGOLIA Like many rural children, D. Banzragch helped his family with traditional herding chores in his native Ider soum, which is located about 1000 kilometers west of Ulaanbaatar in the most remote and coldest region of Mongolia. After school finished, he joined the Mongolian army in Darkhan, the third biggest city in the country and apprenticed under the Russian consultant Mr. Ivan Ivanovich and senior lecturer Mr. Batsukh as a blacksmith. He honed his technique on many construction projects in Darkhan and Selenge. Read more


	REBUILDING FROM THE GROUND UP: A VETERINARIAN BRINGS MODERN CARE TO A TRADITIONAL CLIENTELE Born into a semi-nomadic herding family, Daariimaa has grown up knowing Mongolia's livestock intimately. At an early age she tended a flock and competed in the traditional horse races that sweep through the countryside of Mongolia in a cloud of dust. A few years after high school, Daariimaa graduated from an accelerated vet tech and animal husbandry program and faced the same stark reality of all Mongolians in the post-Soviet era: how do we go forward? In this environment, the veterinary business was slow going. Mongolians were accustomed to state services provided free of charge. Couple this with a lack of modern technology, methodology, and medications; and the Mongolian veterinary sector was not thriving in the new market economy Read more


	AGAINST THE ODDS: TAKING UP THE CHALLENGE TO SUCCEED IN THE GOBI Life in the Gobi is not easy and business opportunities difficult to obtain, but with the help of the USAID funded Gobi Initiative Program people with the drive and initiative to succeed are given a chance. Bulgan Soum is 75km from Dalanzagad the aimag centre of Umgobi. It is a quiet place showing signs of a beginning to thrive. It benefits from its proximity to tourist sites and is famed for the purity of its water which the vegetable growing cooperatives are exploiting in their green fields as one enters the town. Solar panels power the bank and the post office and people gather to mill around the central shops and outdoor pool table. There is however no bakery in town with bread imported from UB or Dalanzadgad. Ts. Battseren has set out to change this. Read more


	MANDAL SANSAR COOPERATIVE: BUILDING A FUTURE THROUGH DISPARATE MEANS Shivee Gobi Soum is a dusty group of buildings sitting in the edge of the desert. Long shadows fall across the sandy ground from the hulking apartment blocks left behind by the soviets and now mostly unused. Another remnant of this recent past, the coal mining industry, puts food on the table of most local residents in one way or another. Others, however, have found different ways to carve a living out of this demanding terrain. Read more


	BAYANHONGOR'S GAN BOGD MILK MARKET: A LOCAL SOLUTION TO SAFER MILK In Bayanhongor milk doesn't come processed and neatly sealed in a carton, bottle, or jug. Instead, consumers buy raw milk from vendors who are creative recyclers out of necessity. These vendors measure their milk and pour it into empty water, juice, beer, and soda bottles, then hand that over to the customer. Until June of 2006, this transaction often took place on the street where the dust blows around and settles like a thin blanket, or in the market along with cutting of the meat products. The lack of milk testing for purity or disease coupled with a low public awareness of the dangers of untested milk constituted a conspicuous public health concern. Read more