Counseling for sex abuse victims in Mongolia
Donation protected
Yanjmaa Jutmaan is one of the best-known female entrepreneurs in Mongolia today. She’s a senior analyst for the Mongolian government in cybersecurity, policy, data analysis and development goals and has a doctorate in applied mathematics from the University of North Carolina. After she got her PhD, she was sent to the western side of the country where, at the age of 35, she became Mongolia’s first female college chancellor (over 260 faculty) at Khovd University. Then she moved her family back to Ulaanbaatar where she’s working for the government and doing contract work for Harvard Medical School and a private foundation.
But along the way, she became highly aware of the high numbers of Mongolian women who have been sexually abused. According to the U.N. Population Fund, one out of every 3 Mongolian women have experienced physical or sexual abuse. These are some of the highest rates in Asia. Yanjmaa herself was an abuse victim when she was young. In 2007, she became affiliated with Good Samaritan Ministries in Beaverton, Ore., where she took a two-month training course on Christian counseling. Over the years, she has built up many counseling clients and plans to start a counseling center near Ulaanbaataar, the capital city where she lives. The land has already been bought.
But building such a center is very expensive, which is why GSM is sending Julia Duin, a writer, to Ulaanbaatar to July to assemble a book on Yanjmaa's life that will be assembled and printed in the United States for use as a way to get major grants for this center. This GoFundMe is for Julia's expenses flying to and from Mongolia and staying 3 weeks in Ulaanbaatar plus the proofing and design and printing of the book. Julia is donating her time in getting the book written.
(Julia, by the way, is a Seattle-based journalist who has written extensively for the Washington Post Sunday Magazine for which she came out with a nearly 6,000-word profile on President Trump’s advisor Paula White in November 2017. Currently, she blogs for getreligion.org and just wrote a profile of Delilah Rene, the most famous woman in American radio, for the Seattle Times. She’s a three-time Wilbur Award winner (from the Religion Communicators Council) for her magazine and newspaper features, most recently in 2018.
She’s also published six books, the latest being In the House of the Serpent Handler: A Story of Faith and Fleeting Fame in the Age of Social Media, a nonfiction work about 20-something Appalachian Pentecostal serpent handlers who use Facebook to publicize their exploits. She's helped two other people self-publish their own books, which is how she knows how to assemble Yanjmaa's life story. Yanjmaa is very modest, so Julia plans to talk with Yanjmaa's relatives and co-workers who no doubt will say great things about her).
Julia's plane fare is $1,365; her expenses in Mongolia will probably be another $1,000 and the rest will be expenses in assembling the book. Typically, self-publishing a book is about $5,000 from start to finish. Future plans are to translate Yanjmaa's book into Mongolian.
Counseling is almost an unknown concept in Mongolian society, hence Yanjmaa is starting something new. She was invited to speak on the topic at a U.S.-based Mongolian Women’s Development Foundation conference in March in Bellevue, Wash. Having been pictured on the cover of Forbes Mongolia magazine, she is well established as a rising young leader in Mongolia.
The target date for having the book written, proofread, designed and printed is next spring at the very latest.
But along the way, she became highly aware of the high numbers of Mongolian women who have been sexually abused. According to the U.N. Population Fund, one out of every 3 Mongolian women have experienced physical or sexual abuse. These are some of the highest rates in Asia. Yanjmaa herself was an abuse victim when she was young. In 2007, she became affiliated with Good Samaritan Ministries in Beaverton, Ore., where she took a two-month training course on Christian counseling. Over the years, she has built up many counseling clients and plans to start a counseling center near Ulaanbaataar, the capital city where she lives. The land has already been bought.
But building such a center is very expensive, which is why GSM is sending Julia Duin, a writer, to Ulaanbaatar to July to assemble a book on Yanjmaa's life that will be assembled and printed in the United States for use as a way to get major grants for this center. This GoFundMe is for Julia's expenses flying to and from Mongolia and staying 3 weeks in Ulaanbaatar plus the proofing and design and printing of the book. Julia is donating her time in getting the book written.
(Julia, by the way, is a Seattle-based journalist who has written extensively for the Washington Post Sunday Magazine for which she came out with a nearly 6,000-word profile on President Trump’s advisor Paula White in November 2017. Currently, she blogs for getreligion.org and just wrote a profile of Delilah Rene, the most famous woman in American radio, for the Seattle Times. She’s a three-time Wilbur Award winner (from the Religion Communicators Council) for her magazine and newspaper features, most recently in 2018.
She’s also published six books, the latest being In the House of the Serpent Handler: A Story of Faith and Fleeting Fame in the Age of Social Media, a nonfiction work about 20-something Appalachian Pentecostal serpent handlers who use Facebook to publicize their exploits. She's helped two other people self-publish their own books, which is how she knows how to assemble Yanjmaa's life story. Yanjmaa is very modest, so Julia plans to talk with Yanjmaa's relatives and co-workers who no doubt will say great things about her).
Julia's plane fare is $1,365; her expenses in Mongolia will probably be another $1,000 and the rest will be expenses in assembling the book. Typically, self-publishing a book is about $5,000 from start to finish. Future plans are to translate Yanjmaa's book into Mongolian.
Counseling is almost an unknown concept in Mongolian society, hence Yanjmaa is starting something new. She was invited to speak on the topic at a U.S.-based Mongolian Women’s Development Foundation conference in March in Bellevue, Wash. Having been pictured on the cover of Forbes Mongolia magazine, she is well established as a rising young leader in Mongolia.
The target date for having the book written, proofread, designed and printed is next spring at the very latest.
Organizer
Julia C. Duin
Organizer
Issaquah, WA
