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The Denan Project began work in rural Mongolia in 2011, launching a medical program in Tariat and surrounding communities—an isolated, high-altitude region with extreme winter conditions. Following early success in health care delivery, TDP expanded into education initiatives and continued supporting physicians with fuel and logistics to reach remote hospitals and nomadic herder populations across Arkhangai Province.
In 2022, TDP opened the first dental facility serving remote communities in Chandmani, Gobi-Altai Province, reaching a population of approximately 41,000. Building on this success, a new dental clinic was established in 2024 at Tudevtei Hospital in Zavkhan Province, Mongolia’s coldest region. TDP aims to replicate the self-sustaining model achieved in Gobi-Altai while continuing to support existing programs with medicines, equipment, and outreach funding across Arkhangai and Gobi-Altai Provinces.
Medical access provided to a combined population of 73,000 people (2025).
Maternal and infant mortality eliminated in Arkhangai Province in 2024 following intervention begun in 2011.
Ambulance delivered emergency care to 455 people in Gobi-Altai, traveling 33,450 km since 2023.
Children’s acute respiratory infections reduced by 61% since program inception.
Medical education outreach serves remote herder families.
Tuition provided for physicians and dentists to complete specialty degrees, including pediatrics, cardiology, anesthesiology, and dentistry.
Awarded a special gold medal by Mongolia’s Minister of Health in July 2017 for work in Arkhangai Province.
When we arrived in 2011, the hospital in Tariat was in a terrible state of disrepair. Built by Soviets in the 1960s, the hospital contained equipment that dated back to that period and was mostly nonfunctioning. At the time, there was only one patient in the hospital, since by the end of each quarter there was no money left to buy medicines, needles, bandages, or lab supplies. Even more starkly, the hospital had no funds for heat, and young patients often died from the cold from within the hospital.
In 2014, the Mongolian government built a new hospital in Tariat, and we worked with the local Ministry of Health to help it properly serve the desperately poor people of the region year-round. In addition to providing advanced training to doctors in cardiology, pediatrics, and internal medicine, anesthesiology, and dentistry, we have also furnished advanced diagnostic, dental, surgical, and sterilizing equipment, sufficient medicines, lab supplies, needles, bandages, a new ambulance, and, critically, funds for heat, year-round. Seven children, weakened by illness, died in the hospital from lack of heat in the year before The Denan Project arrived. Since our involvement, not one child has died in the hospital because of the cold. Tuition costs have been provided to doctors who will work at the hospitals and in health posts in small outposts run by the hospital. One of the local dental students for whom we provided tuition started working at the Tariat hospital upon graduation in June 2017. We also provide funding to enable doctors working in remote health posts to reach patients in distant herder communities.
In June of 2017, we equipped and opened the first dental facility in the town of Tariat, and in 2016 began supporting the hospital in Erdenemandal. Together the two hospitals see about 40,000 patients per year. Since our involvement at the Tariat hospital, the rate of children’s acute respiratory infections in the area has been reduced by 61% — from 193 cases in 2013 to 74 in 2014. This is in addition to a substantial decline in the rate of infant and child mortality.
Until recently, the population of this remote area had little to no knowledge of basic health practices such as the dangers of smoking, excessive drinking, eating a proper diet, or the necessity of washing one’s hands after handling animals or going to the bathroom. The Denan Project has paid for the publishing of simple health brochures that are handed out during regular visits by our medical outreach team to distant groups of herder families. Our team gives medical checkups during these visits; for many people these checkups are the first they have ever received.
The Denan Project also helped form a health club in the high school. Now, every week, medical professionals provide older students with health information. These uniformed health-club members then go into the lower grades and pass on what they have learned to younger students. As is common everywhere, younger kids often look up to older kids and listen more carefully to what they say. The hope is that these students will also pass on what they have learned to their parents.
We also print a monthly health newsletter to bring the latest health information to people throughout the province.
The Denan Project works in partnership with local communities, schools, health ministries at each project site, and Save the Children Japan-Mongolia to advance its programs.
Ministry of Health of Arkhangai Province
Ministry of Health of Gobi-Altai Province
Ministry of Health of Zavkhan Province
Governor of Chandmani
Governor of Tudevtei
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