Lesley is back from Mongolia quilt trip

ST Austell teacher Lesley Coles has just returned from a month travelling and teaching patchwork, appliqué and quilting in Mongolia.

It is the second time Lesley, who travelled with her sister Jane Grendon, has visited the country.

The 60-year-old, who lives with husband Bob at Bethel, taught unemployed and underprivileged women and the occasional man to sew items that they can sell to improve their meagre income.

She said: "I feel my skills with patchwork and teaching are God given gifts and as such it is important to share with others who can benefit from these skills."

Lesley, a tutor at Cornwall College St Austell for 20 years, originally responded to a request sent by Mongolian Selenge Tserendash to the Quilters' Guild of the British Isles in 2005 for patchwork teachers to go and teach in the capital, Ulan Bator.

She said: "This trip was very different to the last, as I wanted to do some outreach teaching in the north of the country, travelling just under 2,000km on dirt track roads in a Russian-style mini van with Selenge as guide and interpreter, Davka, a Mongolian teacher and the driver hired by Selenge.

"As well as teaching teachers and students at the Mongolian Quilting and Design centre in Ulan Bator during this trip, I taught in the remotest villages and out on the high plateaus teaching Nomadic women in their gers – the felt covered tents we know as yurts, using head torches for light.

"In two towns in the north unemployed women were funded by the local labour office to attend the classes.

"Not only did I teach the teachers from the quilting centre, but joined them helping them to teach groups of up to 25 women."