Verbist Care Center in Mongolia

The Verbist Care Center aims to provide a home for vulnerable and runaway kids who roam the streets of Ulaanbaatar during the day and seek shelter and warmth at night in the rat-infested underground ducts of the hot-water system of the city. VCC wants to assure them a better future by sending them to kindergartens, primary, secondary schools and tertiary education. This will enable the children to gain full independence when they leave VCC after graduation. To attain this goal, VCC works together with existing agencies involved in the rehabilitation and development of street children in Mongolia. Every week, members of the VCC team continue to seek for children living in the manholes, bringing them hot food and basic medical supplies for minor ailments. Once a week, VCC also welcomes adult street people for hot meals, medical services, a hot shower and clothes. Social workers also try to locate and visit the children’s family in order to see whether they could return home with their parents, which is often impossible because of alcoholism and dysfunctional family life. There are now some 125 street children living in VCC, from age 3 up to the late teens. Some 18 boys and girls who graduated from high school have started courses of higher education and live in a university dormitory together with other students, while keeping in close contact with the Center.