Oliver Sullivan: Mongolia Trip
Oliver Sullivan’s account of his trip to Mongolia with Gulf for Good (http://www.gulf4good.org), a Dubai-based charity organization at the beginning of October 2006.
Mongolia was a wonderful trip. I loved the horse riding through the snow, cycling through open plains, and walking alongside one of the largest lakes in the world, although I have never been so cold in my life!
The trek had some of the most stunning scenery I have ever seen. The last day was spent with children in Ulaanbaatar. We visited a number of classrooms set up by the Christina Noble Foundation (http://www.cncf.org) to ensure that children have a chance in the future, and a Ger, or tent, village in which over 40 orphans live, with four children to one “mother” in each ger. We constructed a ger for a mother and her two children who had been waiting in cramped conditions for over 15 months. The mother cried and thanked us all very much. The handover also included furniture as a bonus for the new family.
Money from the foundation and your support also helped towards construction of a playground, toilet and shower facilities, along with a night clinic (a bus that patrols the city giving free health care to street children and brings children in desperate need back to the orphanage).
Over 500 children are still living in manholes in the city, where winter temperatures drop to minus 30 degrees Celsius. We heard of two very upsetting stories just before our arrival: five girls have been orphaned after their mother died in a fire and eventually re-housed with a grandfather outside the city. The second case was where a 12-year old girl who stole $6 was sentenced to ten years in prison: the foundation is currently working to ensure her release. I became especially attached to one little girl whose mentally ill mother had tried to kill her several times.
I almost fell down one open manhole and saw several children climb into the same manhole later - it turned out it was their home.
Under Christina Noble, its Irish founder, the charity does other wonderful work. It offers surgery for people sleeping rough whose limbs are in danger of amputation due to the freezing conditions. You can learn more about other projects in Mongolia at http://www.cncf.org/mongolia/projects.asp.
I would like to thank you all very much for you support in ensuring that my challenge was possible. With donations from generous sponsors, combined with money from the Abu Dhabi Irish Society, I raised a fantastic 18,500 dirhams. If you would like to continue to help the society, one way is to sponsor a child for less than 100 dirhams a month. Have a look at http://www.cncf.org/howtohelp/aboutsponsorship.asp today!
Once again, many thanks and my sincere appreciation.