A coffee shop run by visually impaired people opened Friday in the building of Mongolia’s Ministry of Labor and Social Protection here. ‘Cafe more’ is the first such coffee shop in Mongolia.

The shop, sponsored by South Korea’s humanitarian organization Siloam Center for the Blind in collaboration with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), is currently employing five people including a manager.

‘Today, we opened the coffee shop in order to erase misconception on the skills of persons with disabilities from society and to help eliminate the barriers confronting them,’ Jan Ying Geyong, senior official of the Siloam Center for the Blind, said.

Mongolia has some 16,610 visually impaired people, with about 96 percent of them being unemployed, according to the Mongolian National Federation of the Blind.

D. Gerel, chief of the blind people organization, said it is difficult for Mongolia’s visually impaired people to find a job. ‘I’m very happy that such a coffee shop staffed by visually impaired people opened in Mongolia,’ she added.