February 2020 Newsletter

News From Ethiopia

In November our team of six visited Ethiopia, partly for a trip to the historic North and a trek in the Simien Mountains, partly to take part in the Great Ethiopian Run and raise money, but the highlight of the tour was the visit to Addis Alem. There, they visited the village of Beso, where a spring had been capped. The process of spring capping involves drawing together the 'eyes' or sources of a spring into acollecting tank where the water is clean and uncontaminated.

This picture shows some of the women of Beso, together with Worknesh Daba, Manager of our partner charity in Ethiopia For Development Association Ethiopia, with 4 members of ouor team - Beth Chippendall, Chris Payne, Barbara Laue and Mandy Risso.
Below is what the capped spring now looks like.

The second ceremony was the laying of the fouondation stone for our new hostel - Prudence House. Here we see Worknesh with Barbaea, Chris and Diana Brand doing the deed

This is our biggest project at the moment. We already have a donation to start us off, but we aim to raise a further £50,000 this year. We have a HUGE event planned for October - so keep the date clear - October the 15th - and, if we are successful, by 2021 the new hostel should be built, along the lines of Toby's House.

This will accomodate a further 16 girls, so that all the students recieving scholarships will be housed. (At present there are two levels of scholarship - major and minor - only the major scholarship holders are housed in our compound - the rest have accomodation elsewhere in Addis Alem. Although they are supervised, the facilities for study are much better in Toby's House.)

Our successful team from the 2019 Great Ethiopian Run!

Left to right, Tigist, Almaaz, Mary, Diana,Mandy, Rebecca, Barbara, Beth, Chris, Worknesh and Kebede

Well done everyone!

.....and finally
A date for your diaries - Sunday 29th March.
Gilles Defrance will be opening his coffee house ,Gilou's, in The Shambles, Bradford-on-Avon For Ethiopia.This will be the third time that Gilles has hosted a day for us, and it would make a wonderful day out.
See you there!

Ethiopian proverb

One who has not learned to walk cannot climb a ladder.