The François-Xavier Bagnoud association (FXB) provides assistance to vulnerable children living in poverty. It does this by offering comprehensive support to families and communities aimed at leading them towards self-sufficiency.
This includes food safety, health, education, water and sewage treatment, housing, professional training, legal support, psychosocial services and startup funds for micro enterprises that will enable them to gradually meet their own needs. Financial support from FXB declines over the three years of the program.
As partners for more than six years, the AREVA Corporate Foundation and FXB have joined forces for a new program for the Mongolian populations.
Following an on-site study of the population’s needs by the FXB representative working with AREVA's local teams, the Foundation is funding a three-year program of comprehensive support in Sainshand and Ulaanbadrak, Dornogovi Province. Some 100 families living in extreme poverty benefit from the program.
Actions include:
- strengthening revenue-generating activities such as recovered cattle products, a bakery, greenhouse farming and sewing;
- training on troublesome issues: alcohol, tobacco, dropping out of school, and infectious and sexually transmissible diseases;
- nutritional support to supplement the food aid allocated to the poor;
- access to healthcare: payment of medical expenses, tapering off over three years and proportionate to the level of self-sufficiency of each family;
- access to education for children, payment of school equipment and the creation of early learning workshops for the youngest (0-3 years).
The Dornogovi is a Province in southeastern Mongolia. Sainshand is the provincial capital. The majority of Dornogovi's population is nomadic or semi-nomadic. Each Mongolian province is divided into soums; the soum of Ulaanbadrakh is considered to be the poorest.
In spite of its abundant natural resources, poverty remains a pronounced issue in Mongolia. Poverty is not limited to money: there are obstacles to various inalienable services as well. In fact, the poorest Mongolian peoples are deprived of access to quality education, health services and services related to water and sewage treatment. Added to these issues are the very difficult weather conditions.