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.