Photo: Munkhzul Chimid-Ochir (Zula) with one of the classes receiving masks.

The first phase of the Clean Air project in Mongolia has been successfully delivered, with 320 students receiving masks to protect them from the city’s toxic air pollution.

Each year in Ulaanbaatar it is estimated 1500 adults and 120 children die as a result of air pollution. Climate change has made the semi-nomadic lifestyle of livestock graziers unviable, and their subsequent migration to makeshift suburbs on the edge of Mongolia’s capital is the cause of the pollution. Burning coal in their ger tents for heating in the winter produces one of the world’s worst cases of pollution.

Zula has a vision to address this crisis.