By Ashley Lackovich-Van Gorp | Director
The last official survey on street children in Addis Ababa was conducted in 2010, when UNICEF estimated that there were 12,000 unaccompanied children living on the streets. Nearly ten years later, NGOs estimate that these numbers are much higher. Most of these children have no adults to care for them, and they lack access to education, nutritious food and medical care. Boys and girls are both at risk for trafficking for forced labor, with girls at risk for sexual violence, sexual trafficking and child marriage.
At Enhance Worldwide, we mitigate the risks and shocks that threaten the security of some of the most vulnerable children in Addis Ababa through integrated programs and support services. We provide Conditional Cash Transfers to families to ensure that they can remain safe, secure and warm in their home, and we ensure that they have access to nutritious food through supplemental nutrition programs. We also make sure that the children have access to education, including school, summer programs, academic tutoring, mentoring, and life skills programs. While we focus on girls, we support families to uplift the entire community.
We closed out 2018 with our girls getting better grades and scoring higher on exams than ever before. Then in 2019 we accepted two new girls, Asnakgch and Zwede, into our Kinship Care program. These two girls, like all girls in our program, are vulnerable to homelessness and food insecurity, and their relatives cannot afford to send them to school without assistance. And like all girls everywhere, Asnakgch and Zwede have infinite promise and potential. Thanks to our supporters, these girls joined our cohort and will have the opportunity to learn and grow without the threat of homelessness. They will have nutritious food and academic support, and they will have a network of peers and adults in their community who care for them. We hope that one day Asnakgch and Zwede will take all of this support and grow up to be leaders, making their households, communities and country safer and more just for all women and girls.
By Heather Mahardy | Founding President
By Heather Mahardy | Founding President
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