January 27, 2011

Community Fund Update

The Sukhbaatar Social Business Community Fund has been very busy this past year building the community store that will act as a flagship for the Sukhbaatar Trust Foundation and finally opened the doors of the store only a few weeks ago!

Thank you to all of the supporters who have donated your time, energy and resources to this project and helped several families come together in an effort to expand economic opportunity in a remote region of Mongolia.

One special story I would like to share was just told to me last week, as I saw these pictures of the community store's first few weeks and asked how things have been going. The grandmother, named Bayarsaikhan, who runs the store with her husband and family,was showing the new store to her extended family after it had opened it. Her brother, who lives in the countryside almost six hours away and has been a herdsman his entire life, was so impressed with the store that he decided to give her 1,000,000 tugrics which he had been saving up so that her family could buy equipment to make bakery goods and sell them in the store. He was never asked, but decided to share this with his sister (which amounts to about half a year's salary) because he was so impressed with the work that is being done and he wanted to give what he could.

Our vision of this project, from the beginning, has been people giving what they can to others in a sustainable way. Every dollar (and Mongolian tugric) that goes into the  community fund continues to be borrowed and paid back forever, first into a community store and bakery equipment,  then into a mechanics shop and livestock in the countryside, and from there who knows. 

I look forward to keeping you updated on this project through the Advance Humanity blog as it continues to develop, but to learn more please visit AdvanceHumanity.com. Thank you!


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