Send girls to school in Ethiopia

Every day we work in some of the poorest communities in Ethiopia, engaging and empowering the community to break the intergenerational cycle of poverty through education.  The girls and young women in our program are now in their final academic term of this school year. They all continue to work hard and appreciate the opportunity to learn and engage with their peers in a classroom.  As one participant shared, “I love school.  I love the books and the numbers.  I love my uniform and backpack.  I just love it all so much.”  Another participant expressed, “I loved summer school because I felt safe.”

This passion for education is just one highlight of the 16 successful months our programs have been operational in Ethiopia.  As this school year comes to a close, we want to share the impact your support has made.

Since implementing three programs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in January 2015, 30 adolescent girls received pad kits during an interactive workshop on sexual and reproductive health, through our partnership with Days for Girls – Yellow Springs, OH.  A 13 year old participant expressed her joy, “The pads are the most beautiful thing I have.  And I got them because I’m a girl – I feel so proud to be a girl.”  We reached 150 girls with life skills programming to help them make healthy decisions and feel empowered by their own potential.  Additionally, we ensured 10 adolescent girls opened their own bank accounts and began to learn financial literacy skills.  One participant shared, “I’m the first person in my family to have a bank account.  I’m teaching my mother about budgeting.”

Our holistic, inclusive approach supports direct and indirect beneficiaries of our programs alike.  A mother of a program participant shared, “The money for food helps everyone in our home, especially my daughter.  It helps her learn and grow.”  We directly provided 50 family members in very poor households with consistent monthly nutritious food to supplement their diets.  We remain deeply concerned about the drought that is impacting parts of Ethiopia. Our participants are indirectly impacted: lower crop yields have increased the prices of food commodities. Our participants expressed gratitude to you, our donors, for enabling them to supplement their diet at this difficult time.  Apart from our core supplemental nutrition program, we working with our partners on the ground to provide critical aid to the poorest and most marginalized drought impacted communities.

Looking ahead, we seek to expand our support and strengthen our impact.  Last summer, we sent 4 adolescent girls to summer school to build upon their knowledge and protect them from the risks of summer break, such as child labor, child marriage and trafficking.  We continue to develop programming to support and empower our participants throughout the course of their academic careers.  Starting in September 2016, we will send 8-10 girls to university, college or technical school through our partnership with the Kapadia Education Foundation. 

Thank you for joining us – together, we are standing up for girls!