Hong Kong photo auction to help Mongolia’s suffering tent children
As parents struggle with alcoholism and unemployment, the Tsolmon Ireedui Foundation and photographer Paul Cox aim to make a difference in Ulan Bator, where many families live in ‘yurt’ tents
When they found Dolgoon, the 18-month-old girl had been left alone, her hand tied to a mattress, in a small home in one of the poorest suburbs of the Mongolian capital, Ulan Bator. It was mid-October, minus 6 degrees Celsius outside, and she was cold, thirsty and hungry.
Her mother, a single parent of four who struggles with alcoholism, had left her in the care of her older brother, six, who’d gone to a friend’s house to escape the cold.
“We went to search for her brothers and we found them in one of the houses in the neighbourhood watching TV,” says Tsolmon Chimgee, founder of the Tsolmon Ireedui Foundation (TIF), who grew up in the area. “We gave warm clothes to Dolgoon and her brothers. We gave them a hot meal, and some coal to warm the house and cook for the next few days, and some money.”
WATCH: the story of little Dolgoon
Dolgoon’s case is one of the many that inspired Chimgee and her family to start the small Hong Kong-registered charity that provides care for children in impoverished Ulan Bator’s Chingeltei district. They bought a small building in 2010 and opened a small kindergarten. By 2013, they’d raised enough funds to build a laryurt house, and can now welcome 50 children.