Mongolia, also known as the “Land of Blue Sky”, is located in Northern Asia, between China and Russia. At 1,564,116 square km, Mongolia is the 18th largest country in the world. However, it contains very little arable land, mainly made up of semi-deserts peppered with hills, high plateaus, and mountain ranges.

A sparsely populated country with little infrastructure, an estimated 36 percent of its 2.8 million population lives below the poverty line. Although nearly half of the people live in the capital, semi-nomadic life still predominates in the countryside where many families live in gers (round Mongolian felt tents). Traditional gers have no running water and are a fire hazard, while many houses built in ger districts are dilapidated shacks with inadequate insulation for the severe winter temperatures.

In 1990, Mongolia’s economy entered recession with the dismantlement of the former U.S.S.R. In addition, a couple of harsh winters and severe summer droughts lasting from 2000 to 2002 impacted badly on the Mongolian nomadic way of life, and forced many of them to seek refuge in the cities where they have joined the ranks of the urban poor. This leads to an acute shortage of affordable housing, where many existing apartments are severely overcrowded with 10-18 people sharing two or three bedrooms.

By collaborating with Habitat, we hope to break this cycle of poverty and hopelessness by building a decent home for at least one family in Mongolia. This not only fulfills a family’s dream of home ownership, but will also open up opportunity for enriching and valuable cultural exchange between the volunteer team members and local Mongolian people.

Our team logo is that of a human being look alike, but it is derived from a Chinese character “yi”.

“Yi” means volunteer, hence represents us, a group of people volunteering our time and effort for the less fortunate. The colour red is an expression of our passion. The name to go with our team logo is “iPaLs”. The “i” is taken of the Chinese character ‘yi’.

As for “PaLs”, it symbolise Paving Lives as we are building the lives of others, giving them hope for tomorrow.

To facilitate all-rounded personal growth of team members in that they:

To support us or you are interested in lending a helping hands:
- You may contact us through the form below.
- Order merchandises from us; Red wine, T-shirt or Coffeetable book (documentary of Project Hearts for a Roof, Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, available after June 07)

To build homes for the poor.

To eliminate poverty housing and homelessness.

To make a difference to that one family.

To make a decent shelter for others, a matter of our conscience and action.

iPaLs is made up of a group of youths from different walks of life, keen to do their part and make a difference. We recognize that in serving the global community with our heart and hands, we make a tangible difference and improvement to the lives of the people we help, and infinitely enriching our own lives through the experience.

To build a safe and stable home for a family in Mongolia, to enable them to have a more balanced and spacious lifestyle.

To work with the locals, in order to learn from them culturally.

To provide an excellent opportunity for volunteers to interact with the less fortunate and underprivileged.

To bring out compassion in each other for one another, both from the Singaporean team and the Mongolian people.

To develop leadership skills and confidence among our volunteers.

It is a community service project to raise funds and build 4-8 houses for the needy during the expedition to Mongolia in Jan 2007. We are working in support of Habitat for Humanity Internatinal, a proponent in addressing a significant social issue worldwide – decent housing for all.

Our project logo is a picture of a house in the background, built in a tree with smoke of love coming out of the chimney.

As we are going to Mongolia to build houses, the picture of a house is in our design. A house provides shelter and is made from wood, the tree in our design therefore symbolises that. The smoke of love is an expression of our love effort. The name to go with our project logo is “Hearts for a Roof”.

It is a community service project to raise funds and build 4-8 houses for the needy during the expedition to Mongolia in Jan 2007. We are working in support of Habitat for Humanity Internatinal, a proponent in addressing a significant social issue worldwide – decent housing for all.

Our project logo is a picture of a house in the background, built in a tree with smoke of love coming out of the chimney.

As we are going to Mongolia to build houses, the picture of a house is in our design. A house provides shelter and is made from wood, the tree in our design therefore symbolises that. The smoke of love is an expression of our love effort. The name to go with our project logo is “Hearts for a Roof”.

After a hard day of work or school, we go home everyday to a welcoming house, cozy with love and sheltered from the weather. It’s nothing extraordinary for the majority of people in affluent Singapore, but it’s a far-fetched hope that many homeless in Mongolia could not even dream of.

Faced with extreme temperatures and bitter winters as harsh as -40 Celsius, more than 30 percent of Mongolians who live below the poverty line face a daily struggle for survival. With no proper shelter to call home, the homeless - young and old alike, take refuge from howling winds and sandstorms in underground pipes and sewage facilities, living and sharing an environment of rubbish and stench with rodents and other homeless people.

Project Hearts for a Roof, a project by iPaLs, aims to help the disadvantaged in Mongolia build a decent roof over their heads.

Project Hearts for a Roof is a community service project to raise funds and build 4-8 houses for the needy during the expedition to Mongolia in June 2007. We are working in support of Habitat for Humanity International (www.habitat.org), a proponent in addressing a significant social issue worldwide – decent housing for all.

iPaLs is made up of a group of youths from different walks of life, keen to do their part and make a difference. We recognize that in serving the global community with our heart and hands, we make a tangible difference and improvement to the lives of the people we help, and infinitely enriching our own lives through the experience.