Notebooks for Mongolia

Text: Nina Colliander-Nyman
Photos: Kristec

UPM is one of the sponsors in a project where notebooks will be donated to all first-graders in Mongolia for the school year 2010–2011. Finpack, the subsidiary of the Finnish paper merchant Kristec, will manufacture the notebooks in Ulan Bator. A considerable share of the paper comes from UPM's Changshu mill in China.

"We have cooperated with UPM for years, and that is why we asked them whether we could buy the reels left over from the Changshu mill at a special rate. The matter was arranged, and Finpack purchased a substantial share, in other words, nearly 70 tonnes of paper for this project," says Henrik Jankes, Kristec's owner and Honorary Consul for Mongolia.

The paper merchant Kristec is headquartered in Kirkkonummi,
Finland. The company sells annually approximately 40,000
tonnes of paper and paperboard. Founded in 1990, the company
has 10 employees in Finland and four in Russia. Its subsidiary
Finpack has 180 employees in Mongolia, where the work is
mainly done manually. Finpack holds roughly 40% of Mongolia's
paper market, and the company aims to produce around 6 million notebooks this year.

Tough winter caused crisis

The background to the project lies in the hard winter in Mongolia. A large proportion of the country's inhabitants are nomads, and as a result of the tough winter and the huge quantities of snow more than 5 million animals − about 10% of the country's livestock − died of cold and lack of food. The people have been plunged into major economic difficulties, and some have lost all their possessions.

"One of my colleagues got the brilliant idea of distributing notebooks free of charge to all first-graders in the country. There is a shortage of printed learning materials in Mongolia, and pupils mainly write themselves. The notebooks are thin, and each pupil uses approximately 35 during the school year. We therefore need 1.7 million notebooks for the project," Jankes explains. One pack of 35 notebooks costs about EUR 6.5.

Social responsibility

Mongolia is a big country about four times the size of Finland, which means long distances. A non-profit organisation will take care of the distribution of the notebooks, and the Mongolian Chamber of Commerce and the Ministry of Education are sponsoring and supporting the project. The project's patron is the President of Mongolia, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, who recently visited Finland.

"We feel social responsibility for the country's popula­tion, and we believe this is a good way to help," Jankes summarises.

Mongolia in a nutshell

Geography: Mongolia is located in Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. The country is divided into 21 provinces, which surround the capital, Ulan Bator (Ulaanbaatar). Mongolia has extensive deserts and steppes, and the temperature varies considerably. Of the sparsely inhabited country's population, some are nomads who make their living from animal husbandry.

Population: 2.7 million.

Form of government: Republic.