Forestry for Life
The project is dedicated to helping the poorest farmers escape the prison of poverty through training, education and a helping hand. These farmers soon become self-sufficient and thriving productive members of society.
Forestry For Life has been busy in 2021.
We trained and assisted 150 model farmers. The farmers were also taught mixed farming to help sustain them while developing their fruit tree farms. Our group planted and distributed about 700,000 seedlings to the model farmers.
In Tere seedling site we grew 400,000+ seedlings of fruit and forest trees.
In the new Shewarobit seedling site we grow 300,000+ seedlings. We hired 5 guards and gardeners plus 150 daily labourers. We helped 2 villages (Wustembuay and Sirte) get clean water supply. We purchased school materials and uniforms for about 500 children who would not have been able to afford school.
This all happened with the extreme complication of a locust plague and a civil war. Wew! Amazing!
Life Scholarship Fund
This project aims to provide opportunities to students to further their education where they otherwise would not be able to due to poverty. The project provides qualified students from 30 High Schools within the Gojjam Region of Ethiopia with scholarships and support for basic needs while furthering their education. The project’s vision is to expand to all regions of the country.
Meklit Integrated Children and Women
The Meklit Centre has been established to support Children and mothers that are living in poverty in the capital city of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa. They provide shelter, nutritious meals, medical expenses, basic needs and an education.
Busajo
Busajo provides boys and girls, who were previously living on the streets and left extremely vulnerable, with many significant, impactful and life-transforming supports. Whether it be within their residential setting, with their educational supports, life skills development initiatives, skills training or family support and reunification, Busajo transforms the lives of the children in their care. Busajo continues to be there for children and families despite the adverse circumstances surrounding the global pandemic.
Mothers With A Heart For Ethiopia has always been so thrilled to be able to support this project with its many diverse initiatives as the impact of abject poverty on children and families is immense and far reaching. With the supports of Busajo, 85% of the children are reunified with family members and for those where reunification is not possible, Busajo works tirelessly to create a life and a future for those individuals. This year, we had the privilege to support Busajo with stocking up on much needed daily living supplies to ease the effects of pandemic restrictions, while also supporting their Girl’s House.
Girls Empowered Through Soccer (GETS)
In Harar, Ethiopia, fifty girls receive soccer uniforms, equipment and training three times a week. There are two teams and several of the girls from both teams play also on a select team. Four coaches not only provide training but also life skills training and emotional support to the girls. Thirteen of the girl’s families receive monthly food support as they were struggling to meet the basic needs of the family.
One of the girls whose family receives monthly food support told us that before receiving food support, she would argue with her grandmother. Her parents are both dead and her grandmother took her in. She was the top of her classroom before she started to receive food support but now that she has food regularly, she doesn’t argue with her grandmother and her marks have gone up by 10%.
Girls whose families are not able to afford a school uniform and school supplies are also provided this financial support. All girls receive a healthy snack after practice three times a week and meals for special occasions are provided to all 50 girls and the coaches. Girls develop confidence, interpersonal relationship skills, friendships and the knowledge they can do anything boys can do.
Girls Gotta Run
Mothers With a Heart for Ethiopia has sponsored approximately 26 girls from grades 5-8 and approximately 19 girls in secondary school, providing them with education, athletic training, life skills instruction, a hot lunch every day, school uniforms, school supplies and a snack after running practice three times a week. This program is located in Soddo Ethiopia.
Due to COVID restrictions no new recruits have been added to the program and several changes have occurred with the school curriculum as well as running practice and the leadership and life skills programs have been suspended for a period of time. The emphasis of the program became the maintenance of the existing girls, their education and providing both the girls and their families with personal hygiene products such as masks, soap and hand sanitizers to provide needed personal protection.
Mothers With a Heart for Ethiopia with the permission of the Girls Gotta Run Foundation board of directors was able to conduct an independent on the ground evaluation of the program to better determine its effectiveness in the lives of the girls and their families. Overall, the girls thought the Girls Gotta Run program was important to female students, they felt they were more confident than their peers and benefited from the personal support they receive from other participants of the program. Girls reported feeling physically and psychologically stronger than girls not participating in the program. They felt able to set goals and plan for a future that would provide them with greater opportunities. Their families were grateful their daughters were receiving nutritional benefits from the program as well as educational supports.
Group Home
A home, food, medical care, clothing, schooling, school supplies and most importantly a family to belong to is provided to two young men, a teen and the group home mom. One of the young men is taking a masters of social work program and the other young man is in college studying media and information technology. The youngest in the group home is in elementary school. The purpose of the group home is to provide a supportive setting in which the young men can learn, develop confidence and to set goals for the future that will help to make a difference in their country.
Prolapsed Surgeries Project
The prolapsed surgeries project continues to change the lives of women in the area of Soddo Ethiopia! In 2021 Dr. Mark Karnes and Dr. Nate Ross had some unique challenges including times when COVID numbers were increased and affecting the Soddo area and hospital staff. They also had the challenge of adapting to the changing political situation in the country and a period of time when some of the foreign staff at the hospital left the area due to concerns about safety and security.
Despite this, the program continued on and helped as many women as possible with 99 new surgeries being completed during the year bringing us to a grand total of 523 women whose lives have been transformed through surgery for their prolapsed uterus by the end of 2021! The word is spreading far and wide about the availability of this surgery and women have now come from very great distances often walking or travelling for days to arrive at the Soddo Christian Hospital.
We are grateful for the ongoing commitment and dedication of Dr. Mark and Dr. Nate to these women even during difficult times.
Tesfa’s Shelter
Tesfa, a volunteer who personally knows the realities of living on the streets as a child, provides shelter, food, clothing, medical care, education, a family and love for all 92 children at his shelter. Located in Harar, Ethiopia, this home is providing a safe refuge filled with love for children ages 3-19 who have been living on the streets, were abandoned or who have faced unthinkable trauma. Mothers With a Heart for Ethiopia provided 100% of the shelter’s financial needs during this past year due to the impact COVID and civil unrest had on Tesfa’s ability to ask for and receive local support.
WRAPs
Our project partner Allison Karnes described 2021 as an “explosion year” of growth for WRAPS! They are working very hard to become sustainable by establishing their café on the grounds of the Soddo Christian Hospital where the proceeds of the sale of drinks, coffee and food will support the production and distribution of WRAPS kits to school aged girls living in the Soddo, Ethiopia area. The staff at WRAPS are also sewing dolls and headbands with the proceeds going back into supporting WRAPS.
COVID has presented many challenges with the exodus of expat workers and lack of visitors to the hospital where the café is located but despite these difficulties, WRAPS has been able to grow and expand over this past year. WRAPS hired 15 café workers and 2 additional production workers for sewing WRAPS kits, dolls and headbands. Their employee count is now 27. The cafe is still finishing construction but is up and running. In 2021, Mother’s With a Heart for Ethiopia was able to continue to provide support for the cost of fabric to make the WRAPS pads and for transportation costs needed for the WRAPS staff to get to rural schools where the outreach teaching and distribution of WRAPS kits is provided to students.
Mothers With a Heart for Ethiopia plans to continue to provide financial support for WRAPS production and distribution and their work to become self-sustainable! Empowering women through employment, eliminating the need to miss school due to a lack of menstrual products and therefore educating girls is a win-win our organization is very proud to support.
The Mushroom Project
Who We Are
The Mushroom Project is located in Sululta, Ethiopia. The goal of the project is to alleviate poverty in the community by creating mushroom farming jobs in Ethiopia.
Our Backstory
The Mushroom Project came in response to the Locust plague that hit Ethiopia hard at the end of 2020.
October 2020 farmers across Ethiopia faced one of the worst locust outbreaks in decades. The locusts destroyed crops across the country that were a source of food and income to 20 million people.
Fekadu, a father and a local Ethiopian, felt the impact that this locust plague had on him, his family and other community members. Fekadu developed a plan based on the successful strategies of one of our larger Devxchange projects, Forestry For Life. From working with this project for 10 years, Fekadu was the perfect person to start this project.
In 2021 we focused on helping individual farmers gain the training and supplies they needed to start their own mushroom farming business, we grew our network and reached out to foundations for support. From this, stemmed an opportunity to work with the UN.
Our Future Goals
The Mushroom Project has:
- Obtained a piece of land
- Had building blueprints approved 3.Made a plan of action to quickly build a local Mushroom Production Facility
That will:
- Employ many community farmers
- Deliver food quickly to a large area desperately in need of food
Under the recommendations and support of the UN Development Programme, we were able to develop a more efficient plan and operation to alleviate poverty in the area in a place that has seen even more obstacles in 2021. After suffering a terrible and long civil war for the majority of the year, communities have faced horrific and extreme circumstances, leaving most with absolutely nothing. Many crops were destroyed as well and has left the country with a major shortage of food.
The Mushroom Project looks forward to employing farmers and helping them out of poverty. These jobs will change the lives of many families struggling to make ends meet. This will give children the opportunity to go to school and provide them with a brighter future. Thank you to everyone who helped us out in 2021, we hope 2022 will be an even more successful year!
New Hope & Livelihood
This project is working hard to help break the cycle of extreme poverty and bring freedom and hope to people trapped in terrible circumstances. This is done through 2 programs. New Hope, which forms, teaches and funds VSLA groups (Village Savings and Loan Associations) who learn to self administer and take turns taking loans from the seed money provided in order to start and grow small businesses. Newlivelihood, provides vocational training to help young women learn a skill in order to find employment or start a small business.
2021 was a challenging year for New Hope and Livelihood Project. Civil war caused all kinds of extra hardships, but nevertheless the VSLA/Microloans group and Vocational Training of girls at risk continued on despite set-backs. We also were able to do a lot of much needed food relief.
We are thankful for our supporters who gave to help with relief and to enable women in need to break the vicious cycle of poverty.
Sagome Scholarship
In the community of Wolkite, Ethiopia, the Sagome Learning Center provides enriched learning for pre-school and elementary school children, from kindergarten to Grade 8. The school program ensures that students are able to pass government tests and go on to attend secondary school. For the 2021-22 school year, the Scholarship Fund provided the equivalent of 77 scholarships (including half scholarships) that helped more than 100 students successfully reach their education goals. In the past, funding has also been provided to build a new water and washing system (very helpful during the COVID-19 pandemic), and to build a library and girls’ latrines. Last year, some funds were also used to provide food for needy students and families in the Sagome school community.
