Didi Kalika

Didi Kalika

"When Australian-born Didi Kalika arrived in Mongolia in 1993, she planned to teach yoga and meditation. Her true calling, though, wasn’t in the studio, but on the streets, in the form of homeless children who wandered the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, sleeping down in the steaming sewers during the freezing winter months. First, she brought them into her city apartment to take baths, rest, eat a meal, or have a wound mended. But the flat got crowded, so Didi moved everyone into a small wooden shelter and ger in a poor neighborhood in the outskirts of town.

"Since then, hundreds of children — some orphaned, some abandoned, many abused — have been left in Didi’s care. Aided by a couple stalwart helpers, Didi is still the tireless backbone of the shelter, never taking a vacation and rarely leaving the country except to fundraise. If a baby is sick, she stays up to provide care. If a child reaches up her arms as Didi passes by, she automatically picks her up in a big hug. She’s recently, through donations, built a bigger house and a school taught by a kindergarten teacher provided by the British Volunteer Services Overseas (VSO)."

• Founder, Lotus Children's Centre