S04E12: Uyanga Batzogs, Founder & Executive Director of Quality Life, Mongolia

Proliance LLC was looking for opportunity and my business partner was very supportive of me to looking into new business, which was how to service older adults. And when we did a small scale market research, we found out that while there’s a lot of need but not enough money to pay for it. So that’s why we ended up spinning off a non-profit called Quality Life. Proliance provides the opportunity for staffing. So the staff work part-time for Proliance and they also volunteer at the non-profit.

Uyanga batzogs

In today’s episode, I am speaking to Uyanga Batzogs, the Founder and Executive Director of Quality Life. She is presently based in Hawaii but her non-profit organisation is in Mongolia.

Uyanga started her non-profit organisation (NGO) when she discovered a 2015 survey of over 500 elderly citizens in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia revealing the need for senior social and medical care. 

Through Proliance LLC (the medical equipment distribution business that she runs), she founded one of Mongolia’s first senior recreation providers, Quality Life NGO. The non-profit organisation is currently operating a senior daycare service, Quality Life Club, at its government donated facilities in several districts of Ulaanbaatar.

Quality Life Club is a social-based daycare that provides seniors with the opportunity to engage with peers, and their community, and exercise their bodies and minds. 

We also ran board games at a local cafe where we partnered with coffee shop. The coffee shop gets to keep the coffee revenue. And we sold board games. And we also charge a little bit for playing at the cafe so that it generated enough money to help to run the senior centre. So again, I am very passionate about starting services but somehow we had to make money. 

Many of the elders that attend this organisation are retirees of demanding professions, including doctors, lawyers, and teachers, all of whom desire occasion to utilise their intellectual abilities. The Quality Life Club gives seniors exactly that chance. 

The Club currently hosts about 20 participants during an organized program once a week in 4 locations. Members are invited to socialize and befriend each other by playing board games that encourage the use of their minds and cognitive skills. These games are also available for sale for the members and their families which provides a source of revenue for the NGO. The club also brings in guest speakers sharing interesting topics concerning senior lifestyle and health. 

Uyanga’s company Proliance LLC and Quality Life NGO’s board are passionate about pioneering senior care service in Mongolia. In 2017, they started collaborating to support seniors to have meaningful jobs and share their extensive knowledge and experience with other businesses and community members.

I would like to be able to use my network Hawaii and in Mongolia to do some more business between Mongolia and Hawaii, if possible. But I am more excited about doing the non-profit part of it, even though I know that I have to still pay bills and I have to do other things.

Uyanga says that she is most proud of “finding meaning for my life, marrying a very loving and supportive husband and raising 4 children while still pursuing career, hobbies and social work.” Citing Anne of Green Gables as her favourite book, Uyanga also lives by this motto – Do to others as you would have them do to you.  

She talks about her life-changing moment when she met Rita Kullman whose children she had babysat in Mongolia as a teenager. Rita inspired her to be who she is today. 

Mongolia was a communist country when she was growing up but it became a democracy when she was a teenager. Life was much simpler in a communist country – one with fewer choices but she barely noticed the lack because the focus was on family and relationships. 

Prior to the change, everyone including Uyanga thought that her life and career were mapped out. She would get good grades and a job would be waiting for her when she got out of school. With the tumultuous change in the country, almost overnight she was left clueless about the next step in her life which was from having a guaranteed job to having nothing! 

And in communist Mongolia, women worked. They were not stay-at-home moms. So early in her life, Uyanga was like other children sent off to daycare as mothers and fathers worked 6 days a week. So she grew up independent and being able to take care of herself and she only realised what a blessing it was when she moved to the US because she could indeed survive on her own having honed these skills from her early years in Mongolia. 

Listen to how her life unfolded and what she is doing right now. 

Connect with her: 
www.qualitylife.mn 
https://www.facebook.com/QualityLifeClubUB