You may already know that Roots Ethiopia provides School Sponsorships to 200 rural, poor students in many communities. Continue reading “No Barriers to Education: for Teen Girls”
Tag: Sponsorship
School Sponsorship Supplies the School Supplies! (Try to say that 5 times really fast)
Today our field team is working together to deliver school supplies to students who need a ‘refresh’ of materials for the 2nd semester, which starts on Monday.
We are also excited to share that we are now including some additional books for our youngest students in their yearly supplies! We also added tools for math, hygiene materials like soap and lotion, and more everyday notebooks.
Do you want to be part of this goodness?
Join our School Sponsorship program – $21 a month supports one of our 200 students!
2017: Year in Review
Dear friends,
The past 12 months have been amazing for Roots Ethiopia. Our team has been hard at work to support local ideas for lasting change. You have made this a year of growth and excellence. As always, we could not have accomplished our work without your support. We have put together a list of ways YOU have made a difference – add a touch of coffee, some very long days on the road to remote villages, and a dedicated team, and 2017 is a year to remember. We are so grateful for your enduring support!
Happy New Year,
Roots Ethiopia
16
Learning Resource Projects:
3 NEW in 2017
Highlights from our team:
- Wanja Primary School is a woman-led School in Halaba.
- 500 textbooks purchased for Ewoqet Chora Primary School’s first EVER library.
- Over 18,000 students and their families have enriched learning opportunities as part of their continued partnership with Roots Ethiopia.
1 VIP Latrine
(Ventilated Improved Pit)
with Menstrual Changing Room for Adolescent Girls
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170 Students Attending School
with a
Roots Ethiopia School Sponsorship
Highlights from our team:
- All children received backpacks, uniforms and school supplies, and they LOVED the SpongeBob backpacks this year.
- We rented a truck and delivered grain to all the families in our program.
- We listened to a lot of the hopes and dreams the children have for their futures, and we encouraged them to dream BIG!
3 Special Needs Classrooms:
2 NEW in 2017
Highlights from our team:
- Haile Bubamo Special Education classroom received special education toys for children to learn while playing.
- 10 children at Wanja Primary School were added to the Special Education roster.
- A classroom of 18 students in Halaba is now part of our program. There will be a daily snack and transportation to school added as a pilot program here.
60 New Women-Led Businesses
for 3 new Self-Help Entrepreneurs peer savings groups (SHE)
Highlights from our team:
- Women in our new Usmancho SHE are very motivated to build a strong team for learning and sharing.
- The growth of SHE in Halaba Kulito means more women have joined our successful work there and have many successful mentors.
1 Office in Addis Ababa
NGO License & Country Director
*you are welcome to visit us in Hiya Hulet*
3 Teacher Training Programs
Highlights from our team:
- 2 professional teacher training for science teachers. Over 80 teachers trained in a University setting to help them create a hands-on science curriculum for their students.
- 1 professional teacher training held in Addis Ababa for 4 special education teachers.
and more ….
Thanks for being part of our journey to support community-identified solutions for education and job creation in Ethiopia. We are ready for 2018!
The Roots Ethiopia Team
Girls At The Top of Their Class
Meet Three Ethiopian Girls Who Are Ranked At The Top of Their Class
The biggest reward of any Roots Ethiopia project is not just marveling how your collective generosity can transform a community or a school or a classroom. It’s seeing how that loving investment can light up a child’s face.
So we want to celebrate the smiles of three students we are proud to support at Wanja School, which serves over 500 children from the surrounding Halaba district. These three Ethiopian girls—ranked 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in their class—are the future.
Top Of The Class! Dubane, Lubabe, and Redit Are Three Ethiopian Girls Beating The Odds…
DUBANE
Dubane with her Da
ddy and her grade 3 brother, Bergena
Dubane is a 17-year-old Wanja student preparing to enter the 7th grade in September. She ranked first in her 6th-grade class. (Get it Dubane!) Dubane’s background is particularly hard; her family is both poor and socially marginalized within her community. The teachers and students of Wanja have worked hard to create a safe and welcoming environment for Dubane.
The financial crisis of her home life forced her to drop out of school for three years so today some of her peers are getting ready to begin 11th grade. Undeterred by such a tragic loss of momentum, Dubane secured an after-school laborer job at a nearby building site that allowed her to return to school last year for 6th grade. She earns 20 Birr (roughly 85 cents) for a half day of work. With that money, she contributes to her family’s food expenses, purchases school materials, and buys her clothes.
Dubane wants to be a doctor when she grows up. Roots Ethiopia attended the end of year school ceremony and awarded her a new school backpack to begin her 7thgrade, praising both her grades and grit. Dubane is an outstanding role model for all the kids at Wanja.
LUBABA
Seventeen-year-old Lubaba is getting ready to enter the 7th grade. She, too, was forced to take several years off from school because of financial hardships. To reenter the sixth-grade Lubaba works alongside Dubane as a laborer at a construction site and was able to raise the money needed for school registration.
With her hard-earned money, Lubaba could also afford the required school materials and clothing. (In addition to covering her school expenses, Lubaba also puts part of her paycheck towards groceries for the family.) Last year this superstar ranked second in her class.
She also has dreams of going to medical school. Roots Ethiopia is moved by Lubaba’s commitment to her future and gave her a new backpack to help her carry her dreams into the seventh grade.
REDET
Redet, Lubaba’s younger sister, is 15 years old. Like Lubaba, Redet is preparing to enter the 7th grade. She ranks third in her class. (Yes, the Aman girls are incredible.) Their family earns an income from subsistence farming. Her mother sells sugar cane at a street corner and occasionally does hair braiding services for 5 Birr.
Besides Lubaba, Redet has two other sisters and a brother. Because of her family’s long-term financial difficulties, she discontinued her education for three years. But now Redet is supporting herself by working after school as a laborer like her older sister.
She dreams of being a medical doctor. She also has a new backpack that she will put to good use this fall. Go Redet!
If you are inspired by Dubane, Lubaba, and Redet please share this article!
Click here to donate to Roots Ethiopia!
Betsega: A Boy’s Day in Ethiopia
It’s one thing to believe in the promise of a child; it’s a whole other kind of gift to see that promise lived. Earlier this year we introduced you to eight-year-old Betsega — one of the 250 kids benefiting from a Roots Ethiopia school sponsorship. Thanks to your support Betsega goes to school.
Who is Betsega? He is the oldest of three; the son of a father who works as a day laborer and a mother who sells coffee, injera and homegrown vegetables at the night market; a boy who loves soccer; a young entrepreneur who used one month’s of Roots Ethiopia support (275 birr) to purchase four chickens that he tends in a coop he engineered himself. His devoted efforts mean the coop is now home to two baby chicks as well!
When we asked Betsega “If we met you on the street for the first time, what would you want us to know about you?,” this child who dreams of being a pilot one day deftly turned the question around on us: “I’d like to know about your plane ride to my country!”
Without the Roots Ethiopia sponsorship, Betsega would soon be forced into day labor himself. Instead, he can spend his childhood dreaming and studying and working with his chickens. Here, completely in his own words, is a day in the life of Betsega.
I wake up in the morning
I wash my face, eat breakfast, prepare my backpack
I walk to school down the road
Period 1 is environmental science; period 2 is sports; then math, English, Amharic, and spoken English classes
I come home for lunch at 12:30 and check on my chickens
I return to school at 2 for one more English class, math, and more science
I come home at the end of the school day at 3:30
I wash my uniform
I do my homework
I help my Mom while she works to get ready to leave for the market with her injera. I make coffee and anything else she needs me to do. I am good at making coffee!
At 6 I start reading and I study until 8 when my Mom returns.
I help make dinner and roast the coffee. For dinner we might eat potatoes (dinich), kocho (local food), vegetables (gomen), and corn bread.
Then we all wash our legs and go to bed. Sometimes I am too tired to wash my legs and I fall asleep, so I’ll wake up and feel my Mom washing my legs for me.
This is the type of productive and safe day we wish for every child.
Betsega’s chicken coop
An annual commitment of $300 will go far in the year ahead, not just in miles to rural schools where Betsega and other school sponsorship students live, but far into their everyday lives.
Are you ready to educate children in Ethiopia? If so, please SHARE this with others who might want to learn about the benefits of an Ethiopian education!
UPDATE: This blog post was written in 2017 and today Bestega is still working hard to help his family while excelling at school. He’s 13 and in 7th grade. His bright light continues to shine!
7 Incredible Things YOU Did in 2016!
I could not blot out hope, for hope belongs to the future. –Lu Xun
See the dream. Be the impact. Feel the success.
The 2016 sun has set an incredible 366 times, shining a light on all the ways your gifts to Roots Ethiopia have turned dreams and challenges into success. As we begin what will surely be another year of work to create lasting change in Ethiopia, we thought we would bring you a year in review, by the numbers.
Here are 7 phenomenal ways YOU turned local ideas into lasting change:
- 15,000 students and their communities were enriched through Learning Resource Projects that focused on making the school learning environment the best it can be. Desks, chairs microscopes, books, shelves, concrete floors, chalkboards, libraries for public use, the list is long. The impact is broad. The local community is inspired.
- More than 8,600 community members received temporary food support during the months following drought-related crop failures. In the darkest of days, these food staples allowed kids to keep going to school and families to stay strong.
- 113 librarians and 39 science teachers received intensive training in their field to become better leaders and to improve their innovative use of local materials as teaching tools.
- 11 rural schools were recipients of new books in the local language(s). 6,000 students can now expand their literacy skills and love of reading.
- 175 students attended school with all-inclusive School Sponsorships.
- 40 boys and girls participated in a new sports-based program designed to develop youth leadership skills. The program includes uniforms, sports equipment, and instruction.
- Over 300 women and men built their own small businesses that sustain their families. 19 Self-Help Entrepreneurs were in place in 14 project sites for the small business owners to increase their capacity to earn income, increase their self-confidence, and work for social change.
These accomplishments all began as the dreams of small Ethiopian communities. You brought the resources, and you stood strong in the face of the serious challenges that threatened the livelihoods of so many. You gave monthly, or all at once or both. Your hope for better lives for Ethiopia’s poorest families was the thread that linked possibility to progress.
Thank you for an amazing 2016.
In 2017 we will see change, growth, and new opportunities. In partnership with your commitment, here’s to the hope for a better future for all of Ethiopia.
Warmly,
The Roots Ethiopia Board of Directors
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Roots Ethiopia is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization working in Africa, specifically helping Southern Ethiopia. Roots Ethiopia supports community identified solutions for job creation and education.
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School Sponsorship in Ethiopia, #SendMeToSchool!
Every year, Roots Ethiopia re-enrolls our existing students and adds more kids to our School Sponsorship roster. In 2016, 175 kids will head to school in Ethiopia because of your incredible support. You were there when we first sent 38 kids in 2013, 70 kids in 2014, 100 Kids in 2015, and now 175! The growth is tremendous, but education in Ethiopia remains a critical need with 3 million Ethiopian children out of school.
You have probably met Solomon already, the face of our 2016 #SendMeToSchool Campaign. For many of you, his deep brown eyes greeted you in your mailbox over the weekend, via our mailer! Some of you might have met him in your inbox this morning, via an email! Others are just meeting Solomon right this minute, via this blog post!
Solomon is a rock star. Since joining our School Sponsorship Program in 2014, his grades just got better and better. In fact, he recently tested into the prestigious Liqua Public School, one of the top schools in Ethiopia.
Our travel team went to Sodo, Ethiopia in October to meet Solomon. It was a short walk from our van to the traditional mud sided home Solomon shares with his family.
His colorful soccer jersey and warm smile eagerly greeted our team. He was so excited to have visitors and enjoyed talking to us about his educational experiences. Before Solomon was able to go to school, there was little food for his family and access to educational materials was nearly impossible. Now, his family has what they need to send Solomon to school without worry. Solomon is going to be an engineer. He told us,
“I love math and science. One day I will be a NOTABLE ENGINEER and I will remember the hard start of my life, and how you believed in my future.”
It’s hard not to really feel what these opportunities mean for families in Ethiopia, so Roots Ethiopia is setting BIG goals for our #SendMeToSchool Campaign. In addition to uniforms, school supplies, a medical care allowance, and clothing, we are dedicated to making sure kids stay in school while drought conditions persist in Southern Ethiopia. All of the children and their families in our program are receiving additional food support during this critical period in Ethiopia.
$21/month will send one child to school, $42/month will send two children to school, and $63/monthwill send three children to school in Southern Ethiopia.
Join the #SendMeToSchool Campaign and support 175 students and their families in Southern Ethiopia!
Roots Ethiopia is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization working in Africa, specifically helping Southern Ethiopia. Roots Ethiopia supports community identified solutions for job creation and education.
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Site Visit: November 2011
Our first site visit is complete and the trip went fabulously. There is a lot of good work going on as the result of Roots Ethiopia’s support, and much more to be done. We’re excited about what the next several years will bring.
Some General Observations – our first year in operation
School sponsorships make an immediate impact
In the communities where families have received school sponsorships, it’s easy to see where our money is being spent and both the short- and long-term impact it will have on children and families.
Income-generating activities (IGAs) take longer to establish but have the potential to also afford children the opportunity to go to school. If families can develop a steady source of income, they are far more likely to be able to afford the expenses (both in fees and in lost productivity) associated with sending a child to school. For us this means that it makes sense, over the long-term, to work with Meseret Kristos Church to try to transition families from school sponsorships to income-generating activities.
Income-Generating Activities
As of our visit in May, Roots Ethiopia was funding 10 income-generating activities—three in Shinshecho, five in Hadero and two in Doyogena.
Typical IGAs that have been supported thus far include the creation of occupations such as coffee selling, fruit selling, and oxen purchasing. MKC evaluates the success of these programs at the three- and six-month mark, which means none of the IGAs Roots Ethiopia has supported have been fully evaluated yet.
Before receiving funding, recipients of an IGA participate in small business training, and in the assessments, they provide profit reports, complete a self-evaluation and report back on their saving strategies. Occasionally, at the three-month mark, MKC will suggest a change in course for the business structure, based on feedback the recipient has provided.
The team was able to visit a handful of implemented IGA programs, including a woman who received livestock and another woman who is now managing a fruit stand at the market. Anecdotally, we can tell you that things sound like they’re going well, however, we now recognize that IGAs are more expensive to implement than we initially estimated they would be. Realistically, it costs approximately $400 to underwrite an IGA from initiation through to the sixth month of operation.
School Sponsorships
As of our visit in May, Roots Ethiopia was funding 20 school sponsorships—five in Shinshecho, nine in Hadero and six in Doyogena.
The school sponsorship program is running well, and we’re funding the sponsorships at the appropriate level (approximately $240 for a private kindergarten and $60 for a government school). MKC is concerned about what will happen if our level of support drops off in future years because they want the children to feel confident that they can continue with their schooling year after year. We appreciate that concern and want to make sure we’re building in a mechanism by which current donors are re-solicited on an annual basis. We also want to maintain an ongoing commitment to these children.
Reporting
MKC will provide Roots Ethiopia with field reports on a biannual basis. They will also provide an annual report. Roots Ethiopia will, in turn, share this information with its giving circle.
Hurdles
MKC staff stressed a couple of factors that will influence the success of our program long-term.
The number one concern they discussed is hunger. If people are hungry and can’t get enough food to eat, all other programs fail. This inspired our most recent grain drive.
Secondly, they discussed the lack of schools in some of the areas we are trying to serve. Even in Hadero, which already has two private kindergartens, they explained that there is not enough space in the schools for all the village’s children. Building schools remains important work in this region.
Some Goals Moving Forward
- Adequately fund the income-generating activities that we’ve currently committed to.
- Continue to fund more income-generating activities.
- Increase the number of school sponsorships we underwrite.
- Design a process by which donors are solicited annually for school sponsorship commitments.
- Make it easy for all current donors to give on a recurring basis.
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