"Didi is my mother" says girl S. She first came in Lotus children centre when she was only one month old. She grew up here since then. There are more than ten children, came in Lotus since they were babies, like her.
Girl S studies at one of private high schools in UB. "Our centre supports us when we have chance of getting into universities. I am interested in studying abroad. No children have gone to abroad to study before" she said.
Her dream is to become a psychologist. Because she thinks that psychologist helps people with special needs like her and encourages them to go forward.
"Our teachers are really kind. If we face problem, they listen us and we do face-to-face conversation. Also I have never getting bullied at school" she said.
Lotus children centre located in Gachuurt village, 20 km away from UB city. It has built four houses, one boiler house, small playground, one basketball court and garages at their land. Also they planted more than 500 trees to make the centre more attractive while they plant flowers during summer. In 2015, a large 12 wall carved ceremonial ger was built, initially to host the Lotus’ 20thanniversary celerbations, but with the long term view of hosting various events such as yoga retreats, Tsagaan Sar and Naadam celebrations, and possibly special events like weddings.
They have running water and toilet rooms inside the houses due to they have boiler house. However the teachers always pray every night in winter for not to damage the boiler. Because they told that plumbing materials are quite expensive and it is difficult to repair.
Children spend their free times by riding horses. A kind Mongolian family currently living overseas donated three horses with its riding equipment.
Everything at the centre is collected by the donations of kind and generous individuals, entities and international organizations around the world.
Didi Ananda Kalika founded the centre and has been running for over 20 years. Most children in the centre have came at their very early age and loved her as their mother. Either Didi cares and loves them as her child.
Starting from a single apartment Lotus has grown to house, feed, care for and educate 80 children.
Introduce yourself, please?
I grew up in Australia. I graduated from high school, but I did not go to university. I decided and I wanted to work more with people rather than continue my education at that stage. So I started to work as a youth worker, which is similar to a social worker, as a trainee at an organisation called YWCA.
After that I worked in a psychiatric hospital and I worked there for some time. I became interested in meditation yoga so I went to India and I decided to train in that. Then with a yoga organisation I volunteered to Tokyo. There was a small preschool there for young children who could not fit in normal schools. Then I also started teaching yoga meditation there.
Why did you decide to open the Lotus Children’s Centre?
It was in 1995, that time in Mongolia was quite difficult. When I first came here Mongolia was in a difficult situation. Too many kids were living in the street. There was one orphanage run by the Government where children could go if both their parents had died. But not many kids on the street were actually orphaned, rather the family had just broken down or was in a bad situation.
It was not my plan to open a children’s centre, I actually came here to teach yoga meditation. I was mostly doing that. But when I was staying in a kindergarten I saw that many other kids were playing in the playgrounds in the daytime but in the night they did not go home and they were just sleeping there. I realized that it is not a good life for the children. First they used to just come around to my house. I gave them some food and medicine for their infectious. After I started to realize that living in the street, especially for girls, is very dangerous.
But quickly I found out there were a lot more children in need than I thought.
How many children were there at first?
Initially I helped just a few kids that I knew from the street. But quickly I found out there were a lot more children in need than I thought. At one stage, we went up to about 150 kids. In the beginning I thought I would just help three to four, maybe maximum ten children. At that time I did not realize that there were so many kids that needed help. I slowly started to spend a lot more of my time looking after the children.
So Lotus started really with just 1 kid, then it quickly grew to 5 kids, then to 10. In the early 2000s we peaked at around 150 kids, and now we have around 80.
Where were you keeping the children?
First I bought a small house in Yarmag, just like family house. But as we got more and more children we put them in gers. Around the year 2000, we built one building for keeping the small children. I had many babies at that time, many people brought babies and I needed better a house for them. I need well. It was difficult because we had to carry water. If you have many kids especially babies it is difficult if you do not have running water. So we dug a well and built this new building. We lived in Yarmag for 16 years. Now for more than four years we have been living in Gachuurt where we have a much bigger area of land than in Yarmag.
"Didi is my mother" says girl S. She first came in Lotus children centre when she was only one month old. She grew up here since then. There are more than ten children, came in Lotus since they were babies, like her.
Girl S studies at one of private high schools in UB. "Our centre supports us when we have chance of getting into universities. I am interested in studying abroad. No children have gone to abroad to study before" she said.
Her dream is to become a psychologist. Because she thinks that psychologist helps people with special needs like her and encourages them to go forward.
"Our teachers are really kind. If we face problem, they listen us and we do face-to-face conversation. Also I have never getting bullied at school" she said.
Lotus children centre located in Gachuurt village, 20 km away from UB city. It has built four houses, one boiler house, small playground, one basketball court and garages at their land. Also they planted more than 500 trees to make the centre more attractive while they plant flowers during summer. In 2015, a large 12 wall carved ceremonial ger was built, initially to host the Lotus’ 20thanniversary celerbations, but with the long term view of hosting various events such as yoga retreats, Tsagaan Sar and Naadam celebrations, and possibly special events like weddings.
They have running water and toilet rooms inside the houses due to they have boiler house. However the teachers always pray every night in winter for not to damage the boiler. Because they told that plumbing materials are quite expensive and it is difficult to repair.
Children spend their free times by riding horses. A kind Mongolian family currently living overseas donated three horses with its riding equipment.
Everything at the centre is collected by the donations of kind and generous individuals, entities and international organizations around the world.
Didi Ananda Kalika founded the centre and has been running for over 20 years. Most children in the centre have came at their very early age and loved her as their mother. Either Didi cares and loves them as her child.
Starting from a single apartment Lotus has grown to house, feed, care for and educate 80 children.
Introduce yourself, please?
I grew up in Australia. I graduated from high school, but I did not go to university. I decided and I wanted to work more with people rather than continue my education at that stage. So I started to work as a youth worker, which is similar to a social worker, as a trainee at an organisation called YWCA.
After that I worked in a psychiatric hospital and I worked there for some time. I became interested in meditation yoga so I went to India and I decided to train in that. Then with a yoga organisation I volunteered to Tokyo. There was a small preschool there for young children who could not fit in normal schools. Then I also started teaching yoga meditation there.
Why did you decide to open the Lotus Children’s Centre?
It was in 1995, that time in Mongolia was quite difficult. When I first came here Mongolia was in a difficult situation. Too many kids were living in the street. There was one orphanage run by the Government where children could go if both their parents had died. But not many kids on the street were actually orphaned, rather the family had just broken down or was in a bad situation.
It was not my plan to open a children’s centre, I actually came here to teach yoga meditation. I was mostly doing that. But when I was staying in a kindergarten I saw that many other kids were playing in the playgrounds in the daytime but in the night they did not go home and they were just sleeping there. I realized that it is not a good life for the children. First they used to just come around to my house. I gave them some food and medicine for their infectious. After I started to realize that living in the street, especially for girls, is very dangerous.
But quickly I found out there were a lot more children in need than I thought.
How many children were there at first?
Initially I helped just a few kids that I knew from the street. But quickly I found out there were a lot more children in need than I thought. At one stage, we went up to about 150 kids. In the beginning I thought I would just help three to four, maybe maximum ten children. At that time I did not realize that there were so many kids that needed help. I slowly started to spend a lot more of my time looking after the children.
So Lotus started really with just 1 kid, then it quickly grew to 5 kids, then to 10. In the early 2000s we peaked at around 150 kids, and now we have around 80.
Where were you keeping the children?
First I bought a small house in Yarmag, just like family house. But as we got more and more children we put them in gers. Around the year 2000, we built one building for keeping the small children. I had many babies at that time, many people brought babies and I needed better a house for them. I need well. It was difficult because we had to carry water. If you have many kids especially babies it is difficult if you do not have running water. So we dug a well and built this new building. We lived in Yarmag for 16 years. Now for more than four years we have been living in Gachuurt where we have a much bigger area of land than in Yarmag.
How did you solve the financial issue over the years?
I did not have much money. Actually I was teaching yoga meditation for free in the beginning. I was getting some money from supporters in Taiwan. Sometimes I got some donations from different people. When I built the building for the small children in Yarmag I got help from the Australian Government which was good because our living standards really needed to be better since I had so many babies. Not having water was a real problem. Over the years we have had to change how we get money. When we had a lot of support and donations, we were able to build our new home in Gachuurt.
But now it is not easy to get financial support because the economic situation is not so good. Mainly some volunteers and some supporters in England help me to raise some money. We are running the Lotus Guesthouse in the UB which makes little bit of money. We are just about to try to open a café in June. That is going to be a social business because I want to employ some of our special needs children. I want to see if they can do baking and food preparation for the café. Hopefully, we can raise some money from there to support Lotus. Most of the money now just comes from England. We do get some help from a few companies and individuals in Mongolia, for instance Altan Taria regularly donates flour to us. Also NBIK LLC donated a basketball court last year. We are always looking for new sources of support from within Mongolia.
How about Government of Mongolia? Have they ever helped to you?
They do not fund us. They only fund to the Government's Children’s Centres. However the Government did grant me land in Gachuurt ten years ago.
How many employees do you have now?
In total 26. This includes social workers, a driver, a cook, a doctor and manager. Through to winter we need 3 men to work shifts keeping the fire going in our boiler house in Gachuurt.
Are they volunteering?
The Mongolian staff are employed. We have two volunteers at the moment, most of our volunteers are foreigners. But we're happy that more and more Mongolian groups and individuals are coming to volunteer these days.
Where do you find children?
Actually these days we are not getting so many new kids. Before, we had been getting children from police or authorities. Initially I just knew most of the kids in the street and in the street everybody knew each other so if somebody was having a difficult time, they would bring their children to me.
How many of them know their parents?
There are very few children now whose families we know, maybe just only five or six. But the parents do not come to see their children.
How about the age of the children?
Youngest is five and the oldest is 19.
I heard that you teach English to your children?
Yes. Most of their English is ok, they have different levels of ability.
In the beginning I had a lot of problems to send the children to schools. The schools were saying that the kids are from the street and they so are bad. Actually we ran our own kindergarten and primary school for many years. I stopped running that three years ago because now it is possible for them to go to local schools.
Many of them are going to the 85th school in Gachuurt. The older children go to different high schools in UB. Some go to a Chinese speaking school. One goes to Hobby school. Hobby school actually gave a scholarship for that child. Some of them are going to private schools and we pay the fees for that. It’s good for them to be studying in different schools, as they all have different abilities. You just have to work with them and find what is best for them.
We are always looking for new sources of support from within Mongolia.
Does your centre have professional social workers and psychologist?
Yes we do, though I think it is fairly new profession in Mongolia. Now it’s okay I think, and it is slowly getting better.
Have you helped to the first children to go to university?
Yes. The first ones could not go to university because the universities did not take them. But now some are going to the university. For example there is one boy who lives with his brother now. His mother died after his father died. He has some other brothers and sisters but did not have contact with them. He just finished business studies at university last year. Also we have one girl studying at a financial university now.
When they grow up if they want to go to the university, we agree to pay the fees, which I can sometimes get as a donation, because I think it is good to give them chance if they want to learn. Not all of them are capable of going to university, also some just aren't interested. For these children we also set up technical training opportunities. Also I have some 18-19 year olds with special needs who have no jobs and nobody really wants them. That is why I will try to make jobs for them at the new café. I need them to learn to be independent otherwise you have to keep helping them for their whole lives.
Do they all have good backgrounds now?
It is not always that easy. Sometimes they have problems and they come. We have one boy. He is a nice boy, but he actually went to jail for three years for stealing. Now however, he has good job at an expensive resort in another country. So sometimes they might have difficult time at the start of their lives, but they get better. For him he had a difficult time, but now he is doing good. Sometime it just takes time.
How did you solve the financial issue over the years?
I did not have much money. Actually I was teaching yoga meditation for free in the beginning. I was getting some money from supporters in Taiwan. Sometimes I got some donations from different people. When I built the building for the small children in Yarmag I got help from the Australian Government which was good because our living standards really needed to be better since I had so many babies. Not having water was a real problem. Over the years we have had to change how we get money. When we had a lot of support and donations, we were able to build our new home in Gachuurt.
But now it is not easy to get financial support because the economic situation is not so good. Mainly some volunteers and some supporters in England help me to raise some money. We are running the Lotus Guesthouse in the UB which makes little bit of money. We are just about to try to open a café in June. That is going to be a social business because I want to employ some of our special needs children. I want to see if they can do baking and food preparation for the café. Hopefully, we can raise some money from there to support Lotus. Most of the money now just comes from England. We do get some help from a few companies and individuals in Mongolia, for instance Altan Taria regularly donates flour to us. Also NBIK LLC donated a basketball court last year. We are always looking for new sources of support from within Mongolia.
How about Government of Mongolia? Have they ever helped to you?
They do not fund us. They only fund to the Government's Children’s Centres. However the Government did grant me land in Gachuurt ten years ago.
How many employees do you have now?
In total 26. This includes social workers, a driver, a cook, a doctor and manager. Through to winter we need 3 men to work shifts keeping the fire going in our boiler house in Gachuurt.
Are they volunteering?
The Mongolian staff are employed. We have two volunteers at the moment, most of our volunteers are foreigners. But we're happy that more and more Mongolian groups and individuals are coming to volunteer these days.
Where do you find children?
Actually these days we are not getting so many new kids. Before, we had been getting children from police or authorities. Initially I just knew most of the kids in the street and in the street everybody knew each other so if somebody was having a difficult time, they would bring their children to me.
How many of them know their parents?
There are very few children now whose families we know, maybe just only five or six. But the parents do not come to see their children.
How about the age of the children?
Youngest is five and the oldest is 19.
I heard that you teach English to your children?
Yes. Most of their English is ok, they have different levels of ability.
In the beginning I had a lot of problems to send the children to schools. The schools were saying that the kids are from the street and they so are bad. Actually we ran our own kindergarten and primary school for many years. I stopped running that three years ago because now it is possible for them to go to local schools.
Many of them are going to the 85th school in Gachuurt. The older children go to different high schools in UB. Some go to a Chinese speaking school. One goes to Hobby school. Hobby school actually gave a scholarship for that child. Some of them are going to private schools and we pay the fees for that. It’s good for them to be studying in different schools, as they all have different abilities. You just have to work with them and find what is best for them.
We are always looking for new sources of support from within Mongolia.
Does your centre have professional social workers and psychologist?
Yes we do, though I think it is fairly new profession in Mongolia. Now it’s okay I think, and it is slowly getting better.
Have you helped to the first children to go to university?
Yes. The first ones could not go to university because the universities did not take them. But now some are going to the university. For example there is one boy who lives with his brother now. His mother died after his father died. He has some other brothers and sisters but did not have contact with them. He just finished business studies at university last year. Also we have one girl studying at a financial university now.
When they grow up if they want to go to the university, we agree to pay the fees, which I can sometimes get as a donation, because I think it is good to give them chance if they want to learn. Not all of them are capable of going to university, also some just aren't interested. For these children we also set up technical training opportunities. Also I have some 18-19 year olds with special needs who have no jobs and nobody really wants them. That is why I will try to make jobs for them at the new café. I need them to learn to be independent otherwise you have to keep helping them for their whole lives.
Do they all have good backgrounds now?
It is not always that easy. Sometimes they have problems and they come. We have one boy. He is a nice boy, but he actually went to jail for three years for stealing. Now however, he has good job at an expensive resort in another country. So sometimes they might have difficult time at the start of their lives, but they get better. For him he had a difficult time, but now he is doing good. Sometime it just takes time.
I think children came from difficult backgrounds are likely to grow up with bad behavior and commit a crime.
Some are, yes, but some are not. It really depends on each individual child’s situation, for example like what age you take them - of course, if you get them younger it is easier. I think it is not easy for them when they leave the centre, it is hard. Many of them do not have any relatives. In Mongolia, family help each other and everybody manages somehow even economically. Maybe when you are in your 20s or 30s you are still living with your parents. But I can not do this at Lotus. I think it is little bit hard at that stage when they first leave. We try to give some support, but you can not give everything to them. I want them to be independent.
What is the specific behavior of Mongolian children?
I think Mongolian children are open hearted and not so angry. Maybe in other countries a lot of children who have difficult situation, they might be really angry about it. I think Mongolian kids accept the situation. In general, they say it is OK. Some have a lot of difficulties but they don’t tend to get angry or think about it too much.
I heard that you run yoga centre. Also you trained as yoga and meditation teacher. Tell me more about the yoga and meditation?
Meditation is something I had interested in many years. Meditation can help you to have peace of mind as well as it gives you perspective on the world. I think it is a good practice to help you in your daily lifestyle and it’s a valuable practice to do regularly.
People think yoga is just like physical postures. But it is helpful physical postures for the both body and the mind. It helps to balance the mind. I see it’s more popular in Mongolia these days.
I run quite a small centre but I do not have much time to give to that these days. But I have been teaching meditation for some years. I have place near the Ard cinema where we have some yoga classes and meditation. I do not charge to teach meditation because I think meditation is beneficial for people.
Do you teach yoga or meditation to the children?
Actually I have yoga meditation room in Gachuurt and we do a little with some children that interested in it. It helps them to relax and be in touch with their feelings, and it can also be fun for them.
I am really proud of you for doing such great deed to Mongolian children.
Basically, I think if people do something to help other people then it is good. You have to face different things along the way. But once you start you will find a way.
Thank you for the interview.
I think children came from difficult backgrounds are likely to grow up with bad behavior and commit a crime.
Some are, yes, but some are not. It really depends on each individual child’s situation, for example like what age you take them - of course, if you get them younger it is easier. I think it is not easy for them when they leave the centre, it is hard. Many of them do not have any relatives. In Mongolia, family help each other and everybody manages somehow even economically. Maybe when you are in your 20s or 30s you are still living with your parents. But I can not do this at Lotus. I think it is little bit hard at that stage when they first leave. We try to give some support, but you can not give everything to them. I want them to be independent.
What is the specific behavior of Mongolian children?
I think Mongolian children are open hearted and not so angry. Maybe in other countries a lot of children who have difficult situation, they might be really angry about it. I think Mongolian kids accept the situation. In general, they say it is OK. Some have a lot of difficulties but they don’t tend to get angry or think about it too much.
I heard that you run yoga centre. Also you trained as yoga and meditation teacher. Tell me more about the yoga and meditation?
Meditation is something I had interested in many years. Meditation can help you to have peace of mind as well as it gives you perspective on the world. I think it is a good practice to help you in your daily lifestyle and it’s a valuable practice to do regularly.
People think yoga is just like physical postures. But it is helpful physical postures for the both body and the mind. It helps to balance the mind. I see it’s more popular in Mongolia these days.
I run quite a small centre but I do not have much time to give to that these days. But I have been teaching meditation for some years. I have place near the Ard cinema where we have some yoga classes and meditation. I do not charge to teach meditation because I think meditation is beneficial for people.
Do you teach yoga or meditation to the children?
Actually I have yoga meditation room in Gachuurt and we do a little with some children that interested in it. It helps them to relax and be in touch with their feelings, and it can also be fun for them.
I am really proud of you for doing such great deed to Mongolian children.
Basically, I think if people do something to help other people then it is good. You have to face different things along the way. But once you start you will find a way.
Thank you for the interview.
