A South Korean children’s charity has launched a month-long exhibition-cum-sale of spiritual articles to raise funds to support education and other needs of poor children in Mongolia.

The charity, Blooming Kids, is hosting the program that features the works of nine Korean artists and sculptors. It is themed “Empty Hands.” The charity began in 2015 as a “public benefit corporation to continue sharing,” said its chairperson Jemma Hong-soo.

All proceeds would go to aid the poor children in Mongolia. The donations would give the children “dreams and hope and a little better environment and life opportunities.

The exhibition artwork includes bells, crucifixes, wooden rosaries, photographs, and other items that visitors could see and purchase. The charity started in 2015 as an arts-sharing activity and then started donating proceeds from the sales for underprivileged children in South Korea and beyond.

In Mongolia, a child who starts school at age 4 is expected to complete 13.2 years of school by age 18 and is expected to learn the equivalent of 9.2 years, says a World Bank report released earlier this year.  The primary school completion rate was at 97 percent in 2021 compared to 93 percent in 2016.

Mongolia’s national poverty headcount rate in 2020 was 27.8 percent, a marginal decrease from 27.2 percent in 2018, according to the World Bank.