About the Foundation
The Foundation for Mongolian Culture was established in Tokyo, Japan in June 2002 by Mongolian people from China. The goal of the organization is to support the promotion of Mongolian education and traditional culture in China. It is administered by a number of Mongolian and Japanese volunteers.
In China, Mongolians live not only in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, but also in other provinces and autonomous regions such as Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Qinghai, Gansu, and the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
Today, in China many Mongolian school children suffer under economic difficulty. They also have little opportunity to learn their native language and traditional culture from their parents during their childhood.
We are Mongolians originating from China, presently living in Japan, who in order to maintain and promote traditional Mongolian culture and cultivate the next generation of intellectuals, have established “the Foundation for Mongolian Culture”.
Since 2002, in a mere eight years, the foundation has offered scholarships to over 620 Mongolian children in 23 schools.
The Foundation for Mongolian Culture received USD 1,900 from the “MathWorks Social Mission 2011” in support of innovation. This is the second consecutive year of funding for the promotion of innovation from this organization. We are honored that our activities have received recognition. The funding has proven most useful and has served to stimulate further activities. We continue our promotion of Mongolian education and traditional culture in China.
This year (2012), the Foundation for Mongolian Culture has carried out five large-scale activities:
1. 1. In 2012, the foundation’s executive board developed software which uses the traditional Mongolian alphabet. This software has been provided to many Mongolian school children in China and university students in Japan. This software allows one to render the traditional Mongolian alphabet in UNICODE. Now many Mongolian use this free software for writing e-mail each other and publishing an Internet newspaper.
2. This year the foundation has offered scholarships to over 60 Mongolian children in 23 schools. The USD 1,900 received from the “MathWorks Social Mission 2011” comprised part of the funding for these scholarships.
3. Organization of the Second Mongolian Cultural Exchange Festival (Naadam in Mongolian) in Shibuya-Ku, Tokyo on Sunday, 7 Oct. 2011. The festival attracted over 300 attendees and among the activities were:
The opening ceremony of Festival. Geri Gerile (central) is a member of an executive board for this Foundation. She is working at MathWorks Company in Tokyo.
1) Mongolian wrestling competition with 64 participants
2) Traditional Mongolian concert with music, song and dance
3) Presentation introducing the traditional Mongolian yurt
4) Exhibition of traditional Mongolian costumes
5) Teaching of the traditional Mongolian alphabet, poems and songs to children
4. On 11 November 2012, the foundation held its 23rd Academic Meeting in Tokyo. The discussion topic of the meeting was the relationship between the pastoral ecosystem and farmers’ cooperatives in Inner Mongolia, China. We invited one specialist each from Inner Mongolia Normal University and Inner Mongolia Agricultural University in China.
5. On 11 November 2012, after the closing of the 23rd Academic Meeting, we celebrated the tenth anniversary of our Foundation. We invite our Japanese volunteers and many new Mongolian members who were born in China. A decision was reached that senior member were to lead the newer members in the promotion of Mongolian traditional culture and education in our homeland of Inner Mongolia and other areas of China.