ENVELOPING THE WORLD WITH GREAT LOVE

Project time: December 1992
Aid provided: Necessities of life


In the Outer Mongolian highlands, bounded by Russia on the north and China on the south, food production is difficult due to long winters that often span six months. Politically and economically, Outer Mongolia had long been dependent on the support of Russia. When the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1990, it withdrew food production equipment and technical assistance from the region. Consequently, Outer Mongolia suffered from the severe lack of the necessities of life.

The director of the International Red Cross in Outer Mongolia traveled to Taiwan in August 1992 to seek aid from Tzu Chi. He observed that as cold weather set in, the situation in Outer Mongolia was worsening. Insufficient food supplies had rendered the people half-starved. Because the region could not produce powdered milk and nutritious dietary supplements, twenty thousand infants under the age of one faced death from malnutrition.

A Tzu Chi fact-finding team twice traveled to Outer Mongolia to investigate the situation. They found that among infants under the age of one, thirty percent were malnourished, and close to twenty thousand orphans and sixty thousand children from single-parent families were in dire need of daily necessities. The foundation therefore decided to focus on impoverished single-parent families, orphans and old people as its aid recipients.

In Taiwan, the foundation called for children to save their pocket money and donate it to help the suffering children in Outer Mongolia. The public responded with enthusiasm. In two month's time, more than eight thousand cans of powdered milk and funds for large quantities of warm undergarments, jackets, trousers, hats, socks and blankets were raised.

Thirty-nine tons of clothing was to be manufactured or purchased in China and sent to Outer Mongolia within a month. The original plan was to deliver the clothes by train, but the railway authorities declined to do so on account of the frequent loss of goods at the borders of Outer Mongolia. The foundation therefore resorted to air freight. However, planned delivery times coincided with the Christmas and New Year holidays, which complicated negotiations with airport authorities. Operations were stalled until after much lobbying, the Beijing government finally ordered that chartered flights for Tzu Chi be arranged. After four days of working around the clock, the goods were finally delivered to Outer Mongolia.

On New Year's Eve 1992, Tzu Chi volunteers traveled from Taiwan to Outer Mongolia, where temperatures had dropped to minus thirty degrees Celsius (-22 F). Aided by the local chapter of the Red Cross, a women's committee and the national children's center, the distribution mission was duly carried out. The operation brought warmth for a new year that would otherwise have been very cold.

| Back | Forward | Contents |