From sponsored kid to gym owner - an AHISDO story

 

AHISDO was one of Creds early Ethiopian partners, and a sister organisation to CBISDO

It is a community based organisation in one of the poorer parts of Addis Ababa and for many years has been supporting elderly and child residents who are most in need through a sponsorship program. 

Today I met one of the lads who was helped in that program. John had support all the way through kindergarten, Primary and secondary school, and then went on to study sports science at university. Without that support he says he would never have been able to go to school as his family just couldn’t afford the fees, and the uniform, or to give him a meal each day. 

He is now graduated from university with a certificate in that course as well as a qualification in personal and group sports training. 

John was so grateful for the support that he got through Ahisdo and always said that he’d give back in some way. 

Two months ago he set up a well equipped gym in the ahisdo centre. As a result, the community gets a really good sports facility, the youth have somewhere positive to hang out, 15 people have jobs, and Ahisdo gets a new stream of income from the rent being paid which can then be ploughed back into the sponsorship program to enable more young people to get a chance in life. 

A very beautiful visit to end my time In Ethiopia. 

Ps apologies for the photo being rotated. Can’t work out how to make it the right way up!! 

CBISDO

CBISDO is one of CRED’s earlier partners in Ethiopia. I can never remember what the acronym CBISDO stands for (I know, shame on me!), but I do know that it is a very wonderful little community based organization that is working in one of the poorest ‘woreda’ of Addis, and making a huge difference in the lives of many through its various programmes.

The programmes that it runs support school-children, elderly, and those living with disabilities. The school-children and elderly have all been identified by the community leaders as being at the bottom of the income ladder. They then get accepted onto the sponsorship programme which entitles them to a range of supports. For the elderly, it includes coming together at the day centre for a hot meal of injera and accompaniments each day, and then being provided with sanitary products, additional clothes etc as needed. For the elderly who are too immobile to attend the day centre, volunteers take the ‘food on foot’ to the individuals, and in so doing are able to carry out a daily check-in with the individuals.

For the children, they are entitled to an injera-based meal after school (Ethiopian government has been providing all school children with a meal at school since covid), plus additional supports as needed in the way of educational materials and uniform.

There are 14 young people that CBISDO support who are living with disabilities. Some of them aren’t so young any more in age, but all are young at heart, and the fact that there is no alternative provision for people with disabilities post 25 is one of the reasons that they continue to attend the CBISDO programme. The sessions run daily, and include simple numeracy and literacy lessons, as well as life skills, arts, crafts, music and movement. The sense of simple community and friendship between the attendees is palpable, and it was a real joy to visit, and interact with them.

CBISDO – making a big difference in a community that really needs it.

Ellilta – a very special organisation

I’ve visited Ellilta several times now over the years, and they never cease to leave me feeling humble, in awe, and totally inspired.

Started 27 years ago by a dear friend Serawit (Cherry) Friedmeyer, the focus from the start is as it is now – to work with women who, for one reason or another, are caught up in street prostitution, but wish to exit that work and find a new life.

Ellilta now works in 3 cities in Ethiopia – Addis Ababa, Adama, and Bahir Dar. All three centres run the same three programmes: outreach and rehabilitation for the ladies wanting to exit prostitution, intervention for the children of those ladies to try and break the intergenerational cycle that tends to appear in this work, and prevention to try and educate the wider community (men and women) from both a demand and supply perspective. The prevention work is done through schools, churches, community groups, and advocacy work at governmental level.

Today, Jude and I had the privilege of visiting the Addis rehabilitation programme, and hearing more about the work from the staff, as well as meeting with the girls and women on the programme and hearing some of their stories. 

Here are a couple of the stories that the girls shared which give insight into their lives:

Tigiste came to Addis Ababa as a teenager to stay with her aunt so that she could get a better education. Unfortunately, she and her aunt fell out over religion and she ran away to the streets. She got a job as a dishwasher in a hotel but they didn’t pay her, and a waitress there told her about prostitution as an alternative means of income. So she gave it a go, and just carried on.

Then her parents passed away, and she found herself responsible for raising her young siblings. So she brought them from the village to Addis, and went back to prostitution so that she could put them through school. She tried to leave the work by setting up selling second hand clothes, but it didn’t work out and she returned to prostitution once again. 

One night, when she was in a really low place, she met one of the Ellilta outreach workers, and that turned out to be the best thing. Ellilta introduced her to God, and God has given her hope for the future. Ellilta also give her money for rent and food, and she is so grateful to them.

Beza was the only child of a single mother, and lived up country. She used to go to school, but had to get work to help her mum after her mum became too ill to work herself. That led to Beza entering the world of prostitution. 

She came to Addis to earn better money, but she got pregnant. Once the baby was born, she took the baby to live with her mum. That was seven years ago and the child is still there now. Beza continued in Addis so that she could earn money to send back to her mum for the child.

One night the client got vey abusive, resulting in Beza losing the sight in one eye. Still she had to continue as a prostitute as no other options. Then there was a massive accident that she got caught up in due to the work, and that was when she finally decided she needed to get out.

She found Ellilta soon after, and since then they have helped her find God. Now she has a strong spirit and is happy with God in her life. She can bake, she can crochet, and the ellilta family show her love, acceptance and encouragement. She feels like she can walk with her head held high again.

She uses the crochet to take orders and earn money but because of her eyesight it isn’t easy. She’d really like to work in a bank as she enjoyed maths at school.

A week of delivering training in Ethiopia complete

 A week of delivering training in Ethiopia complete 

For the past 4 days, myself and Jude have been delivering some training to a group of 30 – 35 Ethiopians, all of whom have roles working for Ethiopian charities that focus on supporting children living with disabilities.

It has been an incredible week, with some wonderful times of sharing information in both directions. Whilst Jude and I were seen as the visiting trainers, we certainly haven’t been the only ones doing the imparting of info, and it has been fab to see the participants gradually getting to know each other and sharing information, ideas and insights based on their local and contextual knowledge and experiences.

The loose theme of the week has been around rehab for children with disabilities, based mainly on the fact that I have a qualification as a physiotherapist, and Jude is qualified as an Occupational Therapist. The reality is that neither of us practise any more, so for both of us there was a lot of digging deep into the memory bank, but the sessions seem to have been very well received. We also covered other topics that go wider around the care of the child, team work and interpersonal relationships, growth and human development, and understanding the impact of trauma on the brain. 

The participants of the training between them represent 8-10 organisations (it differed on different days a little bit), one of which is CRED Partner Berhan Lehetsanat, who were hosting the training. CBISDO, another CRED partner, was also represented. Many of them were Community-Based Rehab workers (CBRs), others were physios, and there were various other roles represented. When I asked the participants what were the main diagnoses that they came across in the children that they worked with it was as varied as you’d expect: physical ones like cerebral palsy, hemiplegia, talipes, spina bifida, muscular dystrophy; intellectual disabilities; autism; downs syndrome and a range of non-diagnosed, and or complex multi-faceted disorders.

What came across most strongly to both Jude and myself, was the depth of the knowledge that existed in the room when the participants were together. Each of them has their own wealth of experience and knowledge that has been built up over the years. A few have ‘official’ qualifications, but for many their qualification is experience-based. For example, there is now a degree course for physiotherapists at the University of Addis Ababa, but training for OT does not exist. However, that doesn’t mean that the CBR workers don’t know about practise the principles of OT, they just didn’t realise that it had that ‘label’. But together, they had so much knowledge, so much information that they could share with each other.

So this training was really about facilitating that sharing and networking. Jude and I were just there as a front to entice them along! Yes we shared some useful info, but ours was less contextually focussed. The real depth to the training came as they shared together, and took the generic principles and put them into practice based on the resources available to them, plus cultural considerations and the case studies of children that they were working with.

To sit alongside these folks who achieve so much despite such limitations has been a real honour. It is humbling to hear them share about their work, and to see the passion that they have to ensure that every child has access to what they deserve by right. My prayer is that the connections that have been made between these child-rehab practitioners of Addis and beyondwill continue, and that together they can strengthen each other and journey forwards, more equipped and empowered, to bring positive opportunities to children living with disabilities, and their families.

Introducing Etenesh, and through her, Berhan Lehetsanat

 

The main focus of the week here in Ethiopia has been delivering training for staff of Berhan Lehetsanat, and some invited staff from other related organisations.

In Amharic, the Ethiopian language, Berhan means ‘child’, and Lehetsanat means ‘light’ or ‘lighten’. The focus of the organisation Berhan Lehetsanat (hereafter BL) is to bring the light of hope to disadvantaged children, and to lighten their load. Primarily this is through working with disabled children and helping them gain access to education and healthcare, but also BL works to ensure access to education for girls from poor and marginalised backgrounds.

The range of disabilities that children on the BL radar are living with is large, and includes not just the more visible disabilities, but also intellectual disabilities, hearing and visual impairments, and there is an increasing number of children diagnosed with autism that are seeking support. The facilities for supporting these children is very limited, even in Ethiopia which is a fairly forward looking country, and BL is very aware that the main way that they can reach many children is through getting suitable awareness-raising and training into the national curriculums of teachers, health care workers, and community-based service providers.

Therefore, the activities of BL include direct provision of physiotherapy, OT and orthopaedic appliances to children with disabilities; advocacy for the disabled child at all levels, from community upwards, including the dispelling of myths and stigma around disability; provision of training in schools and at teacher training institutes to increase awareness about inclusive education; and advocacy and empowerment for the girl child

As a ‘no-longer-practising’ physio who has lived with the diagnosis of epilepsy since adolescence, I have a particular affinity for the work and focus of BL, which has been a partner of CRED for about 7 years now, and I’ve had the delight of visiting the organisation a few times now, including going to some of their satellite hubs in other parts of the country.

This year has proved to be a particularly special year for BL as it celebrates its 25^th anniversary, and at the centre of those celebrations is Etenesh, the wonderful lady who founded the organisation all those years back. She is such an incredible lady, and it’s my joy to share a little bit about her here.

Etenesh Beyene Wondmagegnehu is the CEO of BL and has been at its helm since the start. She has taken it from a small start up to the organization that it is now, with a staff of 60+, and that has impacted thousands of lives for the better over its years. She is a beautiful combination of a visionary who also can consider plans in more detail and has a wonderful way of enabling others to feel empowered as she includes them in the development of the organisation – she’s just a wonderful leader!

 

The wonderfulness of Etenesh has recently been recognised in the public domain on a few occasions, and today we had a lovely time seeing some of the photos of these recognitions, and quite how impressive they are.

There is a bank in Ethiopia that was set up about 11-12 years ago by a group of women. It is called Enat bank, which is Amharic for mother. The key focus for the bank when it was set up was to make provision to savings and financial services more accessible for women of all backgrounds, and this remains a strong ethos, despite the fact that it is now also a mainstream bank for many men. Every time Enat bank opens a new branch, it names that branch after a woman who they feel has made a significant contribution to the advancement of female empowerment in Ethiopia.

I’m sure you can guess what is coming next: yes, last month the Etenesh Wondmagegnehu branch of Enat bank was opened. What an accolade for her achievements and the work of BL in supporting girls around the country.

In addition, two significant ceremonies have been held recently to honour Etenesh and the 25^th anniversary of BL, hosted by The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and by Ethiotelecom, the national telecommunication company. In Ethiopia, to have one such national institution honour an organization in this way is no small deal, to have two honours makes it very clear just how highly regarded and esteemed BL is at a national level.

The most recent accolade was for Etenesh as an individual. Each year, members of the Ethiopian Civil Society nominate individuals who they feel are worthy of recognition for outstanding achievements in the progressive development of the nation. The list started out at 4,000 people, and eventually, after a long process of scrutiny and investigation, was whittled down to 27 finalists of which Etenesh was one. At a recent celebration event, those 27 finalists were awarded with certificates, and then 3 were highlighted as being the outstanding winners. Two were men, and 1 was Etenesh. So, from the initial list of 4,000, Etenesh was chosen as the top woman from across the nation to receive the Civil Society award.

All of this demonstrates just what an inspirational lady Etenesh is and how much her achievements with BL have been recognised across the nation and society sectors. But alongside this Etenesh is a loving wife who plays an active role in her church and civil society. She has the best interests of children with disabilities at the heart of all she does, and she recognises this as her calling from God. It is such an honour to be able to sit alongside her and to call her a friend, and along with the late Dr Jember, I feel that CRED has had the privilege of serving with two of Ethiopia’s finest women in recent years.

First reflections from Ethiopia

 

I’ve been in Ethiopia now since Saturday night – enough time to pull together a few thoughts and reflections on just being here.

Another day you can have an update on the teaching and training that Jude and I are delivering whilst we are here, and I’ll update you on the partners as well at some point, but for today – just some general first impressions for this trip.

This isn’t the first time of being in Addis, but it’s interesting coming here after a few weeks in another African capital, and I think that is leading to some heightened awareness and comparisons than might previously have happened.

Ethiopia is very proud of its status as being one of only two countries that was not colonised (the other being Liberia), and that history permeates into daily life in many ways. For example, unlike many other African countries, a white person is not a mzungu here, but a firenge. They have their own calendar (it’s currently 2016 here), and their own way of telling time (0hrs daytime is at 6am, and 0hs nighttime is at 6pm, so what we would call 10am is 4 in the morning!). And it feels like a country that is independently driving forwards in its own way, rather than struggling to shrug off a colonial past and a sense of being owed something by those previous colonisers. This independence is also highlighted in the fact that it is home to the headquarters of the African Union, another fact of which Ethiopia has great pride.

The skyscrapers are being thrown up, the architecture is exciting and a bit different, and the drivers follow the rules and wait their turn at traffic lights (to be fair, they do that in some other bits of Africa as well eg Kigali, but definitely not always in Kampala where I’ve just been!). Yes the roads are busy, but they have an overland light railway to help ease the commuter burden, and the drivers just seem to better at realising that waiting a bit longer is better than trying to steal an inch and end up blocking the road the other way and causing a crazy jam!

But there are aspects that are similar to all cities I’ve been to in Africa. The pockets of total poverty living in the shadows of very high-cost accommodation is something that never ceases to shock me. Homes made out of tarpaulin and rusted metal sheets sit precariously on the bits of ground that are of no value to anyone else, or that could get washed away if the river flooded. There seem to be more people living on the streets this time round as well, something that is attributed to the number of internally displaced people as a result of the war going on in the north of the country.

This was exemplified by a conversation we had yesterday when out for a walk. We ended up chatting to a lad who is in Addis to try and do some university – he wants to be a doctor and said he had wanted to do it back home but the war meant he had to relocate. Now he is trying to get registered locally so that he can go to a local University until the time when he can go back.

A sight that made me sad on the night I arrived was the number of girls standing at the side of the road waiting to be picked up. I know it happens in every city, but I guess I don’t tend to be out much at night, and certainly not in the red light districts. But on Saturday the route to the hotel took us that way and it was a very sad reminder of just what so many girls and young women are having to endure on a nightly basis for various reasons. Poverty, escaping from forced child marriages, the lure of the city lights, rural-urban trafficking, escaping domestic servitude… My heart bled for those girls, so many of them just teenagers, and the positive life opportunities that are just not available to them.

The national drink is coffee, and the national food is injera – a huge crepe sort of thing made out of tef (local grain) that comes rolled up, and which is eaten with various sauces, using just one hand. Not quite mastered the art yet, but I’m getting better.

Addis Ababa is a buzzing city with sights, sounds and smells to stimulate the senses. In the evenings coffee ceremonies are taking place on most street corners, with people stopping by to sit and enjoy a cup of their favourite drink before carrying on home. Other folks stand patiently in amazingly long lines of people waiting for the next taxi minibus to come by and squeeze in as many passengers as possible. In some ways it feels like a bit of a grey city, as it doesn’t have the red dust that comes with the dirt roads of so many of the cities in sub-saharan Africa. But it’s surrounded by hills, and I’m hoping that by the end of the week we’ll have been up into some of them to have the chance to look down on this fascinating place.

So there you have it – a few snapshots of this city, one that I’m fast becoming very fond of, and one that I’m looking forward to exploring more over the coming days. I'll end with a few snaps that between them capture a sense of the variations of the city!