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| Conceived and directed by Glenn Mullin |
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CLICK HERE FOR LIST OF PROJECTS, AND TO SEE HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED |
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 While living and training with the refugee Tibetan lamas in India (1972-1984), I became involved in raising funds to help preserve the endangered Tibetan culture. I was also involved in numerous humanitarian projects for the Tibetan refugees, such as finding sponsors for deserving children and college students, getting Western drug companies to donate large quantities of medicines for prevalent diseases such as tuberculosis, raising funds for monasteries, and so forth.
After arriving in Mongolia in 2003 on a teaching tour, I was struck by the desperation of the Mongolian situation. Mongolia had been taken over in 1921 by a Soviet-backed Communist army, and shortly thereafter became subject to the same cultural purges that Stalin had inflicted upon other Soviet-bloc minority regions. All but a half dozen of Mongolia’s more than 1,000 Buddhist monasteries and temples had been destroyed, and the few not destroyed were closed and taken over by the Communists. Its tens of thousands of lamas, monks and nuns were murdered or sent to die in labor camps, and vast reserves of its art and literature were randomly destroyed. Buddhist masterpiece statues were melted for bullets, woodblocks for printing scriptures were used for firewood, and thousands of paintings were simply burned.
The fall of Communism and the evil Soviet empire in 1991 saw Mongolia, and other Soviet-controlled countries such as those behind the Iron Curtain of Eastern Europe, achieve its freedom from Communism. However, whereas the newly liberated countries of Eastern Europe, whose art and culture had suffered under the Soviets, received immense aid packages for cultural reconstruction, Mongolia was largely passed over. Aid in Mongolia had mainly been directed to economic infrastructure, with the art and culture ignored.
Moreover, whereas much of the world was well aware of the plight of the Tibetans, few seemed aware of Mongolia’s very existence. Whenever I mentioned Mongolia to Western friends, I would often be asked, “Is that a country today?” Everyone knew of Ghengis Khan (spelled Chinggis Khaan by most Mongols today), but few knew anything of Mongolia beyond that. Of course they could not be blamed. Seventy years of Soviet dominance had left Mongolia cut off from the free world for over seventy years.
I felt therefore that it would be useful to initiate a number of projects to help at least in some small way to preserve and rebuild the fragile traditional culture of the country, and also to increase awareness in the West of Mongolia’s delicate situation. It was also obvious that some humanitarian projects would be of benefit; the Soviets had bankrupted the country, and when they left in 1991 took with them anything that would fit on a truck, train or aeroplane.
I therefore spoke to some Mongolian friends about creating an NGO (Non-Governmental Organization) for this purpose. We came up with the name “Ariun Rashaan NGO,” or “Magic Healing Waters.”
Below are some of the projects that to date have been set in operation by our Ariun Rashaan NGO. Many of these were begun and even completed before our NGO achieved official status, but we nonetheless regard them as part of the Magic Healing Waters legacy.
At the time of writing, some of the projects have been completed, others are in the works, and still others are in the process of formulation.
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CLICK HERE FOR LIST OF PROJECTS, AND TO SEE HOW YOU CAN GET INVOLVED |
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