The Charities
There is a long list of charities supported by the rally, this year the main charity supported by the Mongol Rally is Mercy Corps Mongolia. Send a Cow is Team Fido's alternative charity to raise funds for, however all the charities supported by the Mongol Rally are shown at the bottom of the page.
Mercy Corps Mongolia supports rural communities to meet their economic and social needs, helping individuals, families and communities to become more self-sufficient, diversified in their production, and better linked to local, regional and national markets. Over the past five years Mercy Corps Mongolia has established a strong reputation across the vast Gobi region, and continues to work with business associations and local organizations to ensure a robust economy that preserves ancient traditions.
Currently they run the following projects in Mongolia: Gobi Regional Economic Growth Initiatives (Gobi Initiative), Rural Agribusiness Support Program (RASP) and the Training, Advocacy and Networking Programme.
We choose Send a Cow as our second charity because it seems a sensible idea to give families living in these conditions a physical means of improving their own lives.
Send a Cow provides families with a cross-bred cow whose milk yield is very high - up to 14 litres a day. Livestock provided by Send a Cow provide a lasting solution for desperately poor farmers in Africa, enabling them to combat malnutrition with protein-rich milk and earn an income from the sale of the surplus milk. Many families invest some of this money in other money-earning ventures, but most use it to keep their children in school. Very poor people, with little land and few resources who find it difficult to manage dairy cows, receive smaller stock, such as goats, pigs or poultry. They can then begin to rear livestock even though they cannot provide the full shelter or fodder needed for a cow. Training is provided beforehand in animal rearing and sustainable organic farming, and low-cost veterinary services are provided afterwards.
The initial gifts go on multiplying indefinitely, as each person who receives livestock passes on the animal's first female offspring to another poor farmer, who will do the same in turn. Send a Cow are now working in Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Ethiopia and Lesotho.
Other Charities
The Mongol Rally also supports other charities allow the teams partaking in the rally to chose the secondary suppported charity. These charities are
Christina Noble Children's Foundation