History and objectives
Actions Mongolie aims at giving medical help to nomadic people from the steppe, by putting in place pluri-annual sponsors between French and Mongolian doctors.
Actions Mongolie was founded in late 2001, after Philippe Garnier made a trip to this country with our Mongolian friend Dastan Nigamet. Philippe was touched by the lack of medical help and health structures in the steppe and then wished to help this nomadic people. A group from Lyon, in love with this country, firstly made up the bureau of this organisation, of whose Dastan is the local correspondent.
After two years, during which we struggled hard to find funds and equipment, our first mission happened in the summer 2004: We built a full ophthalmological surgery block in the Altaï, located on the West side of Mongolia. We sent a surgeon (René Fritsch) to train the local surgeon and give some surgery to the nomads who were waiting for several years.
A 26-minute film relates this first mission, and introduced us to a few sponsors. The immediate help from the Casino group allowed us to prepare the missions 2005, in which four doctors were involved. The Mongolian directress Byambasuren Davaa (Two Horses of Genghis Khan, and The Cave of the Yellow Dog) accepted to be our godmother.
In 2006, five missions were put in place, allowing us to help Khentii and Bat Olzii. The Rhône and the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignation Tiers Monde foundations gave us their support, which was held in place the following years.
In 2007, Actions Mongolie was decorated by the President of Mongolian Republic’s 800th anniversary of creation of Mongolian empire’s honour medal (by Genghis Khan in 1206). This year, the opticians group Atol gave us their help to build a glasses factory in the Altaï area.
In 2008, we started an ophthalmological sponsorship in the Gobi. This was a help mission in the Oulaakhous hospital, and help for the Cancer ward in the hospital of Ulaan Baatar. The composer Etienne Perruchon, the director Patrice Leconte and the young singer-actor Jean-Baptiste Maunier joined our sponsor commitee.