June 2016
In September 2016, 40 children from the Adigrat Vision kindergarten will go to school. These children were given a exiting farewell party by the kindergarten.
Become a godparent for a new child in automn 2016!
Inauguration of the new toilet bloc at the Che'anaduc school.
This school with almost 900 pupils got their first toilets - financed by donations from AV. Of course, this inauguration couldn't happen without a big celebration according to ethiopian tradition.
Everyone of the 20 mothers were able to pay back the microcredit installments on time.
This project has been very successful so far. We visit each of the 20 women with their small business. Almost without exception hte women are all very content and happy. Only two of them would wish for more customers and income.
January 2016
Another wonderful trip to beautiful Adigrat. 44 new kindergarten children aged 3-4 proudly welcome us in their school uniforms.
The ongoing issue of the last few years has been the lack of water supply. Upon our arrival we learn that there has been no running water for a week. At the moment the water is being brought to kindergarten in buckets and is being used very sparingly. Nevertheless, washing hands is an important part of children’s hygiene and should not be neglected. During our meeting with mothers, one mother proudly shares with us that her child insists on washing its hands before mealtime - a small indication that our efforts have been successful.
In the meantime, there are 3 partner schools participating in our project. At the moment our most important goal is to expand teacher-training courses, which have been successfully implemented by our educational director Heilemelekot Amene.
The situation varies from school to school. Mitswae Werki, located just around the corner from our kindergarten, sees our efforts and slowly acknowledges the need of better equipped schools.
There has been an improvement with the toilet situation. Compared to the previous 6 toilets, there are now 14 toilets available for a total of 1400 schoolchildren. But again, lack of water is a big issue. There are still many things we would like to improve. For example, brick built classrooms are much needed to replace the existing corrugated iron ones. In the Che’anaduk school, on the other side of Adigrat, we have begun to build a bathroom block with 8 cubicles.
During our visit we meet very excited schoolchildren who have significantly improved their grades in English thanks to additional tutoring from Heilemelekot.
The third school "Agasi” is the oldest school in the city and it draws our attention to an entirely new issue - namely supporting orphans in procuring school supplies. This project is also strongly supported by the local government. We fully intend to help improve this situation.
The 20 mothers who received the initial funding from AV have in the meantime managed to set up small businesses. We are visiting 13 women who participated in our project and implemented their various business ideas from sheep breeding, and a small shop, to the production of pottery wheels for a traditional “Injera oven”. It is very interesting to see how these mothers work and strive to cope with their adverse daily circumstances, such as rising rents, etc.
It is clear from the mothers meeting that there would still be many more women interested in our project. However, we would like to wait and extend it to others when we have sufficient experience of how to support these mothers in financial areas thus ensuring their long-term success.