Oyuna Bold

Born as the daughter of the most famous female singer in Mongolia, Oyuna Bold (Oyunna Bold) studied engineering at the Moscow State University of Food Production Technologies, graduated and – when the Soviet Union disappeared – returned to her home country at a time when everything was changing: instead of one-party rule and planned economy, suddenly democracy and market economy – instead of a future, which seems to be determined in advance, she was now confronted with a panoply, a broad diversity of options of promising and/or threatening and/or fascinating and/or incredible ways in front of her.
Open to everything – and as well with the feeling of being a little bit lost – she decided to become a translator and interpreter and worked for the Czechoslovakia embassy – but that country disappeared as well and the embassy closed.
For a moment, she even developed the feeling to have a negative influence – as with whatever country she was linked to, that country broke up into pieces.
Remembering the artistic background of her family, she accepted to accompany a Mongolian music group to Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium. Fascinated by the intellectual openness in Europe and by the directness of contacts, she decided to stay in Belgium. As an Asian woman she discovered with admiration a society in which women are emancipated. A society that offers them so many opportunities to develop, learn and flourish. She immediately wanted to reach out to others, to take an interest in Belgium’s culture, history, political and economic situation and to invest herself in it.
As the concept of the European Union “solidarity in diversity” seemed the model for the/her future, she decided to settle down in Brussels and sustained herself as a cleaning woman. When she discovered that her cyrillic-written university diploma was the equivalent of a Masters degree, she asked for a homologation – so new job opportunities opened-up (where she managed to develop certain skills – especially professional consciousness and sense of responsibility).
She worked at the British School in Tervuren, for an energy consulting company and finally (up to now) in the cabinets of six Belgian Ministers – by this becoming the first Asian-born person, having worked for such a long time in those inner circles of executive power in Belgium.
At the same time, she never forgot where she came from. So a few years ago, she created the Mongolian Cultural Center in Belgium. Within the framework of her diverse non-profit activities, she organised exhibitions of Mongolian painters, and looked after the internationally highly decorated Mongolian national archery team (one of the preferred Mongolian sports) during their stay in Belgium. Overall, she made it possible that we here have the possibility to learn more about Mongolian culture.
As her personal concept is to be grateful to one’s roots, she uses her diverse and broad contacts in Europe for years to organise humanitarian emergency campaigns for socially deprived people in her country of origin.
She receives this award especially for her determination to never give up and for her principle that the higher you move up in the social hierarchy, the more you have to be a – proud and humble – servant of your people.

More info: http://filf-iwlf.com/?page_id=3314

February 13, 2022

Video by @ Hessen in Berlin und Europa. full video: https://youtu.be/VLJ8j3HaDwU

Mongolian Art