There’s a whole community of children who are living in and near Ulaanbaatar’s largest garbage dump. These children are often bullied at traditional school because of where they live. So instead of going to school, they rummage through the garbage with their parents — looking for items to sell. The garbage dump is a place no child should ever be. 

But thanks to Holt donors, they have another option… the Red Stone School! 

The Red Stone School is a safe place uniquely designed for these children to learn and grow. They also receive a warm, nutritious meal every day, have dedicated teachers who help them catch up in their education, and even have access to showers and a laundry facility. 

But your help goes even further for these precious children. 

 “Earlier this year, Holt donors provided emergency food supplies to 25 families,” says Paul Kim, the director of Holt’s Mongolia program. “In addition, our team provided trainings for the students, including internet safety, anti-bullying, traffic safety, health and hygiene education and vocational training for the parents.” 

“To date, over 200 children have graduated from this program, taking them away from the dump, and providing them an opportunity for a much brighter future.” 

Paul Kim, Holt’s Mongolia program director

Not only are children receiving the education, food and hygiene help they need for today, but also the family support and empowerment that will help them to overcome poverty someday. 

“To date over 200 children have graduated from this program,” Paul says, “taking them away from the dump, and providing them an opportunity for a much brighter future.” 

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The post A Great Year at the Red Stone School! appeared first on Holt International.

You’re not used to hearing from me, but I am so pleased to have this opportunity to write to you — and thank you for your caring support of the children in our programs around the world!

I have worked at Holt International for over 20 years. The first seven of those years, I worked with the Holt Vietnam team in my native Vietnam, where I worked directly with children and families. I moved to the U.S. with my family in 2008. And today, I have the privilege of serving as Holt’s vice president for all of our international programs and services.

Through the years, I have traveled to many of the countries where you help care for vulnerable children as a monthly sponsor. I have held the hands of children who lost or were separated from their families, listened to struggling families as they shared the hardships they face, and have seen some of the worst poverty you can imagine.

Recently, I had the chance to travel to Mongolia for the first time. I have never seen anything like what I saw in the communities we serve there. There’s one family in particular who I would like to share with you about. They live on the edge of the city garbage dump in Ulaanbaatar. 

I have not seen a family like this in any other country programs. There are 15 different members in the household, including 11 children, ages 4 to 17, and four adults. The grandmother cares for the children while their parents work at the dump, sorting through the garbage for items they can use or sell.

When I visited this family, the grandmother showed the bag of food that she recently bought for her large family to eat over the coming week. It was just a bag of meat. Vegetables are very hard to grow in Mongolia and are expensive even for middle-class families. Imagine what it’s like for a family living in poverty — they can hardly afford them. 

I was happy to see that we would enroll some of the children in our sponsorship program. Because of sponsors like you, the children in this family will be able to attend the Red Stone School, which Holt donors helped renovate and support for children living near the garbage dump. Social workers will provide counseling, and the family will receive basic necessities such as warm clothing and nourishing food — including vegetables.

This family has a lot of challenges. But what I see is a family that is very committed to the children. Love is there, care is there. They just need some support to raise these children.

This program in Mongolia is a true example of Holt’s mission – providing support for children and families so they can stay together. I could tell that if this family of 15 didn’t receive support from sponsors, many of these children could end up in orphanages. 

Holt has developed similar family strengthening programs in Cambodia, a country where I directly oversaw program development for many years. We worked with parents who can’t read, can’t write, have no access to funding or education — and it creates barriers to their future. But within one generation of providing educational support to the children, we have seen a huge change with the children’s generation compared to the parents. The kids can read and write and have opportunities that their parents did not have.

The need in Mongolia is really vast. But through sponsorship, the change we see in the children is also vast. That’s where the hope is, and the future is. 

As a sponsor, you really are giving a child a more hopeful future. I have seen this change with my own eyes. It’s beautiful. Thank you for your kindness and generosity.

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The post A Story From My Recent Trip to Mongolia appeared first on Holt International.

You smell, says the teacher. You can’t wear dirty clothes to school. You can’t learn anything. You don’t belong here.

You belong to the garbage.

On the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, high above the city at the crest of a hill, a land of discarded waste sprawls over miles and miles, shrouded by a heavy cloud of toxic dust. This wasteland, this dumping ground for a million people’s garbage, is a living place, teeming with animals and people who pick through the refuse to gather whatever they can find to survive. A rotten loaf of bread. A bone with some meat on it. Plastic or glass or metal that can be recycled for money.

To get first pick at the discarded food in the trucks that arrive at dawn, some people sleep here, using cardboard and old tires to block the icy night wind. To stay warm, they burn tires and trash, breathing noxious smoke into their lungs. In winter, when they climb up on the trucks, some of them slip and fall to their deaths. In summer, when it is hot and damp, some of them get life-threatening infections.

Some of them — a lot of them — have known no other life, no other place. They are just children, growing up in garbage.

To Grow Up in Garbage

“Most of the people who live in the garbage dump come from the countryside,” explains Baasandorj Alagaa, who two years ago founded a school — the Red Stone School — for the children growing up in the Ulaanchuluut, or “Red Stone,” landfill. “Either they have lost their livestock or simply they have no work. They come to the city with nothing. They can’t find a job. And their education is zero. They eat from the garbage because that is the only place they can go. And the children are eating from the garbage, too.”

Baasandorj — “Baaska” — is a man in his early 40s, youthful looking in a leather bomber jacket and sunglasses beneath the brim of a New York Yankees cap. At first glance, he seems an unlikely person to have founded a nonprofit organization and an alternative school for children living in some of the worst poverty anyone can imagine. But Baaska’s story is their story. He, too, grew up in garbage.

“I know their life,” he says. “I am one of these children because I was orphaned and I grew up digging in the dump.”

But then one day, after 10 years living in the dump, Baaska decided “that’s enough for me.” He started attending church, and with the help of missionaries, Baaska finished school and then college and ultimately, he earned a master’s degree in social work — hoping to help others who have lived the same hard life that he has.

“I know their life. I am one of these children because I was orphaned and I grew up digging in the dump.”

Baaska, founder of the Red Stone School

“I started going to church in 1998, and my life started changing,” he says. “By going to church, I was able to believe in life, become confident, and that there are still people in this world who love me, who will protect me. While I was going to church, I studied at Ulaanbaatar University, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in social sciences, and became a social worker. Since then, I established the Red Stone NGO.”

Baaska is humble, and the way he quickly glosses over his educational achievements makes them sound like no big deal — like the only thing holding him back for so long was sheer lack of will. But for children who live and work in the dump, attending school is no easy feat.

There are no yellow buses to come pick them up from the dump and drive them the three miles to the nearest school. Because many of their families migrated from the countryside, they can’t register to attend one of Ulaanbaatar’s public schools — schools that are already overcrowded, with kids attending in 4-hour shifts of 50 or 60 students to a class.

“They get teased at school by the other kids. They get teased because they smell, they do not wear nice clothes, their hair looks dirty or because of the supplies they use… And not only students, but the teachers sometimes say to the kids that they should not be going to school with dirty clothes. They can’t learn. They belong to the garbage.”

Baaska

Even if they could register their children, expenses like books, uniforms and supplies are well beyond the means of families who dig through trash for a living. Reliable shoes are another expense that parents can hardly afford, and in winter, when temperatures dip to 40 degrees below zero, they worry about their children getting frostbite on the long walk to school.

Some children overcome these obstacles, trudging through ice and snow in flimsy, filthy clothes just to get an education. But what they face inside the classroom is in some ways far worse than any of the other roadblocks that stood in their way.

“They get teased at school by the other kids,” explains Baaska. “They get teased because they smell, they do not wear nice clothes, their hair looks dirty or because of the supplies they use… And not only students, but the teachers sometimes say to the kids that they should not be going to school with dirty clothes. They can’t learn. They belong to the garbage.”

A New Way of Life

Munkhbold was nervous for his first day of school. He was 9 years old, but had never attended school before. Most days, he tagged along with his mom to the garbage dump and helped her dig through the trash — hoping to find food or recyclables, which would typically net them between 1200-1500 tugriks, or 60 to 75 cents, per day. For Munkhbold, his parents, his three siblings and his grandma, home was a cramped summer shed, converted from an old wooden caravan, with uneven slats that let in daylight and dust and, in winter, frigid cold air.

A woman in her 30s, Munkhbold’s mom grew up in the countryside before moving to Ulaanbaatar in search of work. “I wanted to get a job,” she says, “but I couldn’t because I wasn’t qualified for anything.” Like many people coming of age in Mongolia after the fall of the Soviet Union, Munkhbold’s parents found themselves ill prepared to find work in the new market economy.

“When I first heard about the school, I didn’t want to go. It was scary. I’d never been to school before. But my mom said, ‘You’re going to school.’”

Munkhbold

They grew up expecting an altogether different way of life — a life in the country, herding livestock or working on collective farms subsidized by the Soviet Union. But after the Soviet collapse, subsidies ceased and communal structures broke down. When Munkhbold’s mom moved to Ulaanbaatar, the only place she could earn a daily wage was in the informal economy of the Red Stone landfill.

“I was 17 at the time, which was about 13 years ago,” she says of the day she moved to the dump.

The next year, she had a daughter. And then a son. And then two more children. But only her eldest daughter attended school for a time, dropping out before the second grade. She’s 12 now, and last year, she started the first grade over at the Red Stone School.

“I went many places to find jobs and because of that, I moved my kids outside of regular school districts for some period of time,” says Munkhbold’s mom, a warm and earnest woman who closely resembles her 12-year-old daughter.

Munkhbold’s mom tells us that she has an eighth-grade education, while her husband, who occasionally works as a builder, finished seventh. Now that her kids have an opportunity to go to school, she is determined to give them an education beyond what she and her husband received. So on a day last September, instead of joining their mom at the dump — a place no child should ever be — Munkhbold and his sister nervously walked down the hill from their home to a place called the Red Stone School.

Generations of Change

The Red Stone School sits inside an iron fence on a patch of land a half a mile from the dump. It looks out over low, rolling brown hills sliced by riverbeds that freeze over in winter, and build up trash in summer. Deforestation during the Soviet era stripped the hills of trees and plants, and in their place are thousands of plastic trash bags that floated down from the dump after being picked clean of their contents. When the winds kick up in late spring, the bags whip and spin through the air in colorful storms of smoke and dust. But on a still sunny day, through the barred windows of the Red Stone School, they glisten like diamonds on the hillsides.

On his first day of school, as Munkhbold walked along the edge of the trash-strewn ravines, he dreaded what it would be like. Would the other kids be nice to him? What would he have to do? Would it be warm? But as he stepped inside the classroom, he began to feel differently about this place so different from anyplace he had ever been.

“That was a great day. I made some new friends,” says Munkhbold, a stout guy with a charming smile and a birthmark on his chin that earned him the nickname “beard” among his new friends.

At school, he ate lunch every day — a lunch he didn’t have to scavenge from the garbage dump, a lunch that just appeared before him, steaming hot and delicious. He learned about “recess” — a time designated just for play, with a basketball court and lots of games waiting for that very purpose. Munkhbold already knew how to read, but for the first time, at school, he would learn how to write. He received a navy blue uniform, neat and pressed with a blazer and button-down shirt. He discovered that he really likes math, he says. And what he most looks forward to — his favorite day at school — is when they serve dumplings. “When we were at the dump, we ate what we found,” he says. “Some days we ate a lot. Some days, we didn’t eat at all.”

“When we were at the dump, we ate what we found. Some days we ate a lot. Some days, we didn’t eat at all.”

Munkhbold

The promise of daily hot lunch is one of the biggest draws to the Red Stone School, and when we visit on an afternoon in early May, the children line up to fill their bowls full of chicken, rice and shredded carrots. It’s a dry, 30-degree day outside, and the chill wafts in the hallway. But once inside, the heat from the furnace keeps the classroom toasty warm. The walls are lined with educational posters and artwork created by the children, and textbooks sit open on their desks.

When Baaska first opened the Red Stone School two years ago, only seven kids showed up for class. The school at the time consisted of two industrial shipping containers welded together, and his nonprofit couldn’t afford heat, regular meals or textbooks for the kids. When winter came, attendance quickly dropped off. But when the staff of Holt Mongolia learned about the Red Stone School, and what Baaska was trying to do for the children in this community, they immediately reached out to Paul Kim, Holt’s U.S. director of Korea and Mongolia programs.

“This is why I love working in this country,” Paul says, as he surveys the grounds of the school. “There are so many individuals like [Baaska] who have the heart and drive, but don’t have the funding because Mongolia is a poor country. There is an amazing opportunity to create a huge impact here.”

For years, Holt Mongolia has worked to empower families living in Ulaanbaatar’s most impoverished district — a district home to around 65,000 people, including those who live in and around the Red Stone dump. In these communities, monthly donations from Holt sponsors have helped struggling parents, often single mothers, meet the most critical needs of their children. For these most vulnerable families — families who have in many cases migrated to the city after losing their livelihood in the country — Holt sponsors now provide the safety net that disappeared along with their traditional way of life.

“Mongolia is traditionally a communal culture,” explains Paul, who has worked with Holt’s Mongolia program since it formally began in 2000. “Extended families and nomadic groups would support members of their communities, and provide care for any person or family in need. However, with urbanization, those traditional safety nets are gone, and the government does not have the funding or the systems in place to provide care to these children and families in need.”

This year, with the support of Holt sponsors and donors, over 1,000 children in nearly 400 families in Mongolia will receive food, shelter and warmth — basic support that helps keep families together, and provides a stable foundation to rebuild their lives. 

But in every country where Holt works, we never work alone. Always, we seek opportunities to partner with local leaders who know their communities best.

“Throughout the history of our organization, our most successful programs have been built upon collaboration with local partners and governments,” says Paul. “They are the most aware of the places with the greatest need, which are frequently hidden from the eyes of outsiders, and just as importantly, they know of what is in the hearts of those we would serve.”

By partnering with a local leader like Baaska, we not only meet immediate needs, but empower children in this community to lift themselves and their families out of poverty — and out of the dump.

As Paul says, “Our partnership with the Red Stone School will impact children and families in this community not only today, but will continue to ripple out through each successive generation that follows.”

The Impact of Sponsors

In October 2016, Holt sponsors began supporting Red Stone students through monthly donations that would cover the cost of books, school supplies, salaries for teachers, daily hot meals and, most critically, heat. With support from sponsors and donors in the U.S., Baaska and his team built a two-room schoolhouse, combined the shipping containers into a large room, installed a furnace and will soon build an enclosed shower and toilet so that the children can take hot showers — a luxury that many of them have never before experienced.

In this, the poorest district in Ulaanbaatar, families will often go months at a time without bathing. Public baths often deny service to families from the dump, and many of the children suffered from chronic lice, ticks or skin issues when they first came to the Red Stone School. But on the cold day in May when we visit, they look like the healthiest, most beautiful children in the world — a change that is in no small part due to the compassion and generosity of their sponsors.

“With the help of sponsors, we can see with our eyes the progress we are making in providing education to these children, which encourages us all. Such generous help and support gives us a belief that anything is possible for these children.”

Baaska

“With the help of sponsors, we can see with our eyes the progress we are making in providing education to these children, which encourages us all,” says Baaska. “Such generous help and support gives us a belief that anything is possible for these children.”

Much like the public schools in Ulaanbaatar, Red Stone can only accommodate a limited number of children at a time. At present, 40 children attend the Red Stone School in two shifts of a little longer than four hours each day. But the school is open every day of the week, with special weekend activities for the kids held inside their converted shipping containers. Baaska hopes to convert this structure into a library and another classroom, and wooden shelves now line the insides, waiting to be filled with books.

“They haven’t been standing still,” Paul says. “They have kept working.”

Donors continue to raise funds to provide more for the kids, and during our trip, we deliver a washing machine, dish cabinet and lockers for the kids to store their belongings.

“I am very, very happy and so thankful to Holt sponsors and the organization for helping all our kids,” Baaska says when we visit, alongside a team of Holt donors who traveled with us to build new homes for some of the most vulnerable children and families in the Red Stone community — including Munkhbold and his family, who now no longer live in a wooden shed.

With this group of donors, Baaska shares that he feels like he can finally relax now that he has so many “brothers and sisters” to help care for these children — children who he and all the teachers and staff at Red Stone love like their own family. When Baaska came down with a life-threatening illness a few years ago and could not afford the expensive treatment, he tells us that the children came together to collect recyclables so they could save his life.

“When they gave me the money, it amounted to about $3.70,” he says. “My eyes were filled with tears. That they love me as much as their parents was beautiful.”

Inspired by the children, Baaska eventually raised the funds to cover his medical costs and today, he is more motivated than ever to continue growing the school. He is not content to stand still.

“Next to the dump there is a large graveyard and children live there, too,” he says. “My dream is someday we have a school big enough for all the children from both the garbage dump and the graveyard. Why can’t we build a school for over 1,000 children or more? That’s the size of my dream. We don’t have the funds for that. Not yet. But I can dream.”

What the Future Holds

During our visit, we ask Baaska what sort of future the children who graduate from the Red Stone School will have to look forward to. They will have an education, but will they have opportunities? Before responding, he looks down and thinks for a moment, holding his Yankees cap in his hands.

“I have a chat with the kids a lot, tell them my life story,” he says. “They all ask me, ‘How can I become like you?’ But I tell them that they can be better than me.”

Although Red Stone is not a certified school, the children can graduate with a GED. And once they do, they are eligible to enroll in college. The cost is high, but Baaska has already connected with local universities and several have expressed interest in providing scholarships for Red Stone graduates.

“I have lived this hard life, and I had this opportunity to provide these kids with education,” he says.

Seeing how his life changed, Baaska has faith that here now, in this sanctuary of hope and peace amid a land of wasted dreams, are future scientists, presidents and scholars. For these children — children who Baaska once feared would not live to see their 20s, children who are now so loved and protected by all of their brothers and sisters in Mongolia and in the U.S. — anything is achievable.

“The children who grow up in the garbage don’t have any dreams,” he says. “But if we can educate them, they can dream big.”

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The post A School for Kids in the Garbage Dump appeared first on Holt International.

There wasn’t any fuel to warm the Red Stone School in Mongolia this winter, but you provided just what kids needed to get warm!

It’s wintertime in Mongolia, where on the worst days temperatures can drop to 40 degrees below zero. These low temperatures are dangerous — deadly, even — to the children who live here.

The Holt-donor supported Red Stone School is a shelter from the cold for 52 of these precious children. It’s a special informal school just for them — children who live and work near the city’s largest garbage dump.

But this year, as winter approached, teachers and Holt staff didn’t know how children would stay warm. Even though the children could come to school each day, they didn’t have any fuel to heat the school building.

They needed coal. But coal is expensive, especially this year due to rising costs because of the coronavirus crisis. And for a building the size of the Red Stone School, they’d need at least one bag of coal a day to keep the room warm. November is the beginning of the coldest months in Mongolia, and time was running out…

But right in time, in early fall, Holt donors sent a shipment of $1,000 worth of coal to the Red Stone School! That’s enough to last three months! A huge shipment of coal was delivered straight to the school, just before the coldest time of the year.

Thanks to generous Holt donors, all 52 children at the Red Stone School stayed warm at school on the coldest of Mongolian winter days. They learned without shivering and wrote without their fingers going numb. They’re staying healthy, and school continues to be a safe and comfortable place.

UPDATE: Ulaanbaatar is currently undergoing another phase of city-wide lockdowns to curb the spread of COVID-19. While children are not in school currently, this safe — and well-heated — learning environment will be waiting for them as soon as school is allowed to resume!

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The post A Warm Place to Learn appeared first on Holt International.

“The harshness of this environment… it is just not a place where children should be,” says Paul Kim, director of programs for Korea and Mongolia. “[It’s not a place] where anyone should be, really — but especially not children.”

But nevertheless, this place — a garbage dump outside of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia — is home to dozens of children and their families. Including Purev and her family.

Purev’s Story

Purev lives with her single mom and five siblings just outside the garbage dump. Her mother’s only steady source of income is the child support she receives each month from the government. But this isn’t enough to survive on. So that’s why Purev and her family live near the dump – to try and survive on the edible food and sellable recyclables they collect from it.

But since Mongolia implemented quarantine measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, Purev’s mom hasn’t been able to sell the recyclables she gathers. Their family’s income became next to nothing.

Purev and her siblings used to attend the Red Stone School, a safe place for children from the dump to learn and receive a warm, nutritious meal every day. But the Red Stone School had to close amidst COVID restrictions, and Purev and her siblings lost that stable daily meal. School resumed for a couple months at the beginning of the year, but when a second wave of COVID threatened Mongolia in November, the schools once again had to close.

Holt staff was able to provide some emergency food relief to Purev and her family, but as the pandemic continues, their needs just increase more and more.

Purev and her family are struggling to survive. And their desperate situation is multi-faceted.

“Aside from the burden of providing food for her children, she has many other challenges in this pandemic time,” a Holt staff member in Mongolia shares about Purev’s mother. “Protecting ourselves and others through proper handwashing and hygiene practice has never been more important, but basic water and hygiene facilities are out of reach for this family because they don’t have access to running tap water.”

Struggling to Survive

Life was already difficult for children and families living near this garbage dump in Mongolia. But since the pandemic, it’s become even harder.

These children need food each day, and basic essentials like soap, clean water and masks to stay healthy and safe during the pandemic.

They also need support in their education. Without digital devices or even electricity, learning is impossible while school is out of session. But even more worrisome is that once out of school, it can be unlikely for children to return. In this difficult time, many children have helped to provide an income for their family by rummaging for recyclables in the dump. And even this very small added income is difficult for families to lose. Once schools are back open, it’s essential that these children receive the support they need to return to the Red Stone School.

How You Can Help

When you give to the President’s Top Priority Fund Campaign for Children 2020, you will help provide the following (and more) to children living near the garbage dump and children in need all around the world:

• Masks, hand sanitizer, soap and other COVID-19 supplies
• Emergency food such as flour, rice and cooking oil
• Support to help children return to the Red Stone School

Give a Gift of Hope

Give a lifesaving or life-changing tangible gift to a child or family in need. And this holiday season, give in honor of a loved one and they’ll receive a free card!

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The post 2020 Year-End Top Priority: Children Living in the Garbage Dump appeared first on Holt International.

In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Holt donors help provide a special school for children living in or near the city garbage dump. Before this school opened, these children spent their days digging through the trash in search of food and recyclables.

This school is the only place many of these children can take a hot shower or get warm . This is especially important in the winter when temperatures in Mongolia can drop to an icy 40 degrees below zero.

But recently, the school was in serious need of renovation. Four doors needed to be replaced and the walls were drafty and needed additional insulation to keep children warm and dry during Mongolia’s extreme winter weather.

So when schools closed this summer due to COVID-19, generous Holt donors helped make these critically needed building renovations possible!

When the children returned to school on September 1, you not only equipped them with school supplies, book bags, hand sanitizers and masks. They also had a warmer, safer learning environment to come back to — all because of you!

Give a Gift of Hope

Give a lifesaving or life-changing tangible gift to a child or family in need. And this holiday season, give in honor of a loved one and they’ll receive a free card!

Shop now

The post You Made Their School Warm for the Winter! appeared first on Holt International.

Yargui almost couldn’t return to school because of the additional costs for a mask, hand sanitizer and other school-in-a-pandemic essentials. But thankfully, Holt donors didn’t let these additional costs stand in her way.

On September 1, Yargui and her classmates returned for in-person school in Ulaanbaatar. But she almost couldn’t go. All because of a bottle of hand sanitizer.

This year, children around the world need more supplies than ever in order to attend school. In addition to all the regular items like paper, pencils, uniforms and books, most children also have to provide their own mask and hand sanitizer. Such is the case in Mongolia, where the government requires that every student has their own bottle of sanitizer for school.

This doesn’t seem like much, especially when it costs just $1.33. And it’s an important item to ensure children stay healthy and to help stop the spread of COVID-19. But $1.33 is a huge cost for a family that only makes $30-40 per month.

Yargui lives with her parents and three sisters in a neighborhood of “gers” — traditional Mongolian, yurt-like homes — outside of Ulaanbaatar’s largest garbage dump. This is one of the most impoverished areas in the city, and most of the people who live here — like Yargui’s parents — earn their living in the dump. They search for food, fuel and other redeemable items in the refuse, or they find recyclables that they can sell for a small income. This is how they survive.

Yargui used to go to a formal government school. She’d walk with her sisters down the long, frozen dirt road that led away from their ger home and into the outer limits of the city. But it wasn’t long before her family couldn’t afford school anymore. Yargui and her sisters dropped out.

Ganbaatar’s story is similar. He was born with cerebral palsy and lives with his mother, grandmother and younger sister near the garbage dump. His mother is the sole earner for their family. While he started out in formal school, Ganbaatar had to drop out due to poor health and because his mother could no longer afford to pay for his books, supplies, uniforms and fees.

Enkhtuya’s father is a miner and her mother stays home to take care of her and her younger sister. When she was 5 years old, Enkhtuya was in a car accident that affected her mobility. She also has a learning disability that made school difficult. So when her parents struggled to afford school expenses, she dropped out, too.

“Students here drop out of school almost entirely due to social inequities,” says Paul Kim, Holt’s director of Mongolia and Korea programs, “whether it is poverty, lack of parental education or support, physical distance from school and lack of access to public transportation, because they have special needs, or just because of hopelessness.”

And it’s all too common an occurrence for children in this community.

But Yargui and Ganbaatar and Enkhtuya had a safety net: The Red Stone School. The Holt donor-supported Red Stone school is an informal school tailored exactly for children like Yargui. It’s a safe, warm place for children who live in or near the garbage dump to receive an education, a warm daily meal and the support they need to continue their education. Holt donors cover all the fees and provide all of the school supplies they need.

The Red Stone School is an amazing place. But last March, when the pandemic reached Mongolia, it had to close its doors. And the students lost more than their education.

For most of the students, the free lunch they receive at the Red Stone School is the only real meal they can rely on each day. So when schools closed, they were immediately in danger of going hungry. But Holt donors didn’t let that happen. You acted swiftly to raise the funds needed to provide emergency food and other essentials to families in need.

Throughout the school closure, Holt social workers delivered emergency bags of food and other supplies to the children and families in greatest need. They continued to check on the children, provide educational materials, and monitor how they were doing. Even though they couldn’t go to school, over the past six months you helped to feed and care for children in the best way possible.

Thankfully, children across Mongolia returned to school at the beginning of September. But there was an additional back-to-school obstacle. Children needed masks and hand sanitizer.

There was no way that Yargui’s family could afford hand sanitizer. None of the Red Stone families could afford it. But without hand sanitizer, at just $1.33 per bottle, the Red Stone School would not be able to open.

But once again, there was a safety net: Holt donors. Before school started, Holt donors made it possible to purchase 500 bottles of hand sanitizer for students at the Red Stone School and the other informal schools that Holt supports in Mongolia.

“This simple act will allow them to keep attending school,” says Paul, “and Holt social workers will continue to distribute them as needed.”

For a child in poverty, a seemingly small obstacle can make it impossible to attend school. It could be the cost of a uniform or a textbook or pencils and paper. In this case, it was just a $1.33 bottle of hand sanitizer. But thankfully, the opposite is true, too. Sometimes all it takes is one small act of generosity to overcome an obstacle and change a child’s life.

And now, just a few weeks into the school year, each child at the Red Stone School has big plans and important goals that they’re working toward.

“Yargui likes to go to school and her favorite subjects are painting and physical education,” says Ariunbolor, a Holt social worker in Mongolia. “This year, her goal is to build up her reading and writing skills.”

Ganbaatar loves being the center of attention in class, and is excited to do as many extracurricular activities as possible this year. His teachers think he will make great progress in reading and writing.

“Enkhtuya loves to come to school and is growing in her ability to express herself and be more friendly with the other students,” says Ariunbolor. “Her favorite subject is Mongolian language and she enjoys attending her school’s New Year’s party.”

Thank you for helping to make school possible for these children in Mongolia. You help them overcome every obstacle, and you empower them to have a bright future.

“This school year holds opportunity and hope for a better future for each child at the Red Stone School,” says Paul. “They’ll be in a safe and caring place where they can truly feel cared for and supported. They’ll grow in confidence in their own abilities and gifts, and start on a path to explore and celebrate them. They’ll be in a place where they can be children and not feel the pressures of the world upon them.”

Children’s names changed for confidentiality 

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The post A Bottle of Hand Sanitizer, Hope for the School Year appeared first on Holt International.

It started in 2015. After a meeting, Paul Kim came to my desk and said, “You know, we should totally do a donor team to Mongolia.” I replied with what I can only imagine was a very blank stare, “Why?”

He sold me on the idea and two and a half years later a team of us were off. I didn’t know a lot about our programs in Mongolia. I just knew it as a small program that Paul had talked about from time to time and that I had a few donors specifically interested in. I left for Ulaanbaatar with an open heart and an open mind.

I want to highlight one day — a day that was particularly hard. After we went to visit the Red Stone School, we went out to visit families who were living near the landfill. The staff in Mongolia took us to find families who needed help — and hope. These families were literally living among the trash of the landfill. In on ger, they were surviving on moldy bread they had found in the garbage.

As an adoptee, it’s impossible not to see yourself in every child who seems to have a less fortunate outcome. That day I found myself asking, “Why me, God? Why was my outcome so different?”

One of my donors, a mother of two children from Mongolia, once told me that the hardest part for her was looking at the ones who would be left behind. The ones who would not go home with a family.

I understand so clearly that I’ve been blessed with the privilege to speak up for those who did not get to go home. And those who do not have anyone to advocate for them. After that I week I understood why Paul, for years, had been pushing me towards Mongolia. He knew that if he could get people to see the program we would understand the need. My heart is awake and ready to answer the call for these kids!

Courtney Hohenlohe Langenburg | Development Officer

Learn more about Holt’s work in Mongolia. 

Holt’s 2017 donor team in Mongolia.

The post My Heart is Awake appeared first on Holt International.

Because of your kindness and generosity, children growing up in a garbage dump in Mongolia have warm meals, nice new school supplies and are able to study just like other kids. Watch as the founder of the Red Stone School shares about this special sanctuary for children, and how you are helping them to live happy lives.

Learn more about the Red Stone School!

Thanks!

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While traveling in Mongolia, Holt donor Mary Buckley sees first-hand how sponsors change the lives of children — inspiring her to become a sponsor, too. 

My husband, Mike, and I adopted our children from Korea through Holt. Our son, Christian, came in 1988 at 13 months old, and our daughter, Kim, followed in 1990 at 8 months old. At 2 years old, Christian was diagnosed with a cleft palate, requiring corrective surgery and speech therapy for many years. Kim arrived with previously undiagnosed medical conditions, including Turner syndrome.

At a time when most children were coming home to their adoptive families in as few as three months, we also sponsored children in Korea. It seemed that as quickly as we put a photo on the fridge, that child would be adopted. Updated information was rare because of the rapid turnaround, and we did not have the opportunity for a closer connection.

Mike and I had our hands full tending to our children’s medical issues, our careers and graduate school. We had to cut back on expenses, and Holt sponsorship was one expense that we trimmed. In the years since, I have been fortunate to travel with Holt to Korea three times — in 1994, 2010 and 2016. I have enjoyed seeing Holt-supported programs in Korea, and I obviously have a strong family connection to Korea. However, I did not sponsor again, perhaps because I never connected enough with a specific child to resume sponsorship.

But after all those years, that was about to change.

In December 2016, on a Holt Gift Team trip to Korea, I had the pleasure of meeting David Kaufman, another team member. A jovial man with a New York accent who loves to get down on the floor and play with kids, he is an instant magnet for children. I loved watching him interact with children wherever we went. A few months later, in New York, I met up with David again and over dinner, he shared more details about his sponsorships for children in Holt’s care. I heard about his extended stays in Korea to visit and advocate for children, saw his photos of the kids, and I heard how he keeps up with the children’s progress. He truly loves these children as if they were his own, and after dinner, I found myself thinking, “Wow, you can really go places with sponsorship beyond just putting the child’s photo on the fridge.” My conversation with David convinced me that, unlike the days when the fast adoption timeframes for sponsored kids left no chance of a real connection, it was now possible to do just that.

Today, in fact, most children in Holt sponsorship live in the care of their birth families. Sponsors support these children for months, sometimes years, while their families work toward stability and self-reliance.

A few weeks later, in May 2017, David and I traveled together to Mongolia as part of a Holt vision trip. We donated funds to provide “gers” — traditional Mongolian homes — for vulnerable families, and even helped build the gers. Meeting the families and spending a day building a ger for them was an experience like no other. That is, until the day we visited the Red Stone School bordering the city dump and the destitute families living nearby.

We walked on a cold day near a ravine strewn with trash and entered a lone ger to visit a family identified as one who might benefit from Holt’s support. Inside, we met Gerel*, a malnourished woman in her 20s. She told us how she lives there with Erhi*, her tiny, 3-year-old daughter, three brothers and an abusive boyfriend. I was amazed how easily Gerel told the details of her difficult life to a group of foreigners who gathered in her ger. We heard how she was six months pregnant, which seemed unbelievable as there was no sign of even the tiniest baby bump on her frail body. As she spoke, I recognized something familiar about her speech — the same nasal speech and difficulty with sounds as our son, Christian. Turns out she, too, had a cleft palate.

I was so mesmerized listening to Gerel that I did not interact with Erhi. But I was next to another team member who did, and little Erhi entertained us with her smiles and laughed as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

Gerel agreed to leave with Erhi and receive care at a medical facility Holt partners with in Ulaanbaatar. I knew immediately that Erhi was a child that I must sponsor. As soon as we left, I said to David, “I want to sponsor that little girl.” David said, “Talk to Courtney. Today. She will make it happen.”

I couldn’t wait any longer. I left David and asked Courtney, a Holt staff member on the trip, if I could sponsor Erhi. I was beyond thrilled when she said yes, because finally I had the sponsorship connection with a child that I had always hoped for. As it turned out, our team had also donated enough funds to provide a new home for Gerel, while David and I teamed up to provide furnishings — ensuring Gerel and her daughter would never have to return to her abusive situation.

When my sponsorship packet arrived, there were photos, a magnetic fridge frame and so much more information than what I used to receive. The packet cemented the relationship. Now, it is official that I am responsible for this child, and I know first-hand that the sponsorship will go a long way to meet her needs.

Not long after, I learned that another teammate came forward to sponsor Gerel’s new baby — creating yet another connection as I now share the bond of helping this family with my fellow teammate. We have emailed each other about how important it was to us to have been there, seen the family, and to know the desperate situation first-hand.

Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to travel to the countries where Holt works and personally choose a child to sponsor or hear from social workers and caregivers how greatly sponsors are valued. In most cases, an online photo is all that is available. So I encourage everyone to spend a little time with the photos, read whatever information is available about the child, the program and the country, and know that sponsors are appreciated beyond belief.

Mary Buckley | Omaha, Nebraska

* names changed

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