Summary: Making Progress

Since 2002, our child sponsors have done much to help the Hidhabu Abote community make progress. Everyday life for many children and their families has improved significantly.

In 2008, several things were accomplished.

Children are healthier because:

• Their diets are better and more diverse with more vegetables, including enset, the highly nutritious plant commonly known as “false banana”;
• Crop yields doubled for the poorest families in the area, meaning children have more to eat  and food shortages occur for just two months of the year instead of four;
• Access to clean water and better sanitation for more than 740 homes has led to less waterborne disease;
• A new health post has extended service to more than 5,000 people;
• Malaria education has reached more children and immunizations have increased from 25 to 60%; and
• Training in preventative health care has reached 2,751 community members and 15 health workers.  

This means that Hidhabu Abote has made some great progress since 2002, when nearly half the families in the project were short of food for four months of the year, and when unclean water and a lack of immunizations were making children sick.

More children got a proper education because:

• The Hidhabu Abote community has built classrooms in two schools;
• School enrolment is at 84 per cent and has shot up to 19,835 students from a low of just 9,362 in 2002; and
• In 2002, only about half of the children were in school and incomes were low, which made the daily struggle for survival even tougher for orphaned children and widows.

Often parents had to choose between feeding their children or sending them to school. But now, with the help of our sponsors, more children are in school and parents’ attitudes about education are changing.

More people are providing better care for those living with HIV:

• Through 20 new community care groups, more than 500 people provided emotional care and support for 2,500 orphaned and vulnerable children;
• Training for 480 teachers, church and faith-based leaders and 4,500 community members helped people better understand how HIV is spread and how to decrease the risk of infection. 

When the Hidhabu Abote project began, most people knew little about HIV, discrimination was widespread, and there was no formalized care for orphaned and vulnerable children or people living with HIV or AIDS. Now, the people are learning to respond to HIV and AIDS by reducing stigma and discrimination and providing care for those who need it. 
 

Accomplishment: More Food, Better Food

Dejene Zegaye is rearranging bags of grain in the two-room storehouse he built for this year’s harvest. It’s filled with a healthy crop of peas, beans, three varieties of teff — the nutritious, high-fibre grain native to Ethiopia — wheat, and barley. It even has a roof of corrugated metal — a sure sign of success in this Ethiopian farming community. 

Today, this once-destitute family man is a model farmer for others in his community. They are learning through him that change is possible. Dejene’s success is part of a new wave of optimism, with children eating more and families able to make more nutritious choices. In 2008, other accomplishments in Hidhabu Abote include:

• 200 farmers learned to produce vegetables such as beet root, carrot, and cabbage;
• 194 farmers began growing the highly nutritious enset, and nearly 5,700 enset seedlings were distributed to 445 community members;  
• A new 1.1 km irrigation canal helped 117 families water their crops;
• Training in modern organic farming methods and proper storage practices helped 300 farmers improve production; and 
• Another 300 farmers were trained in animal husbandry and beekeeping, and they received oxen, cows, and beehives to get them started. 

Dejene was not always able to grow enough for his four children to eat. “Before, I didn’t have anything,” he explains. “As a father, I felt a very strong sadness. I used to be a day labourer … but it was not enough. It was just for survival.”

Dejene had to beg his elderly landlady not to evict his family —but today, he supports that landlady with food and extra income. Thanks to World Vision’s child sponsors, Dejene has received the training and supplies he needs to grow and store more food. He also has an ox to plough land, a dairy cow to boost his children’s milk supply, and seeds to cultivate vegetables and grain.

Accomplishment: Education is Hope

Shelma, 14, goes over his notes one last time. The classroom is packed, the tension high. He’s got pre-exam jitters, but it’s OK. Getting an education was a dream Shelma nearly lost a year ago, but today he is back in class, eager to learn more and wholly optimistic about his future. 

Canadian sponsors have given Shelma reason to hope —  he is back at school. And with sponsors’ support, others like him are also thriving.

World Vision’s child sponsors are helping make education a priority in Hidhabu Abote. Together in 2008, we:

• Built classrooms in two schools;
• Enrolled another 890 children thanks to the extra facilities;
• Provided 10,000 exercise books and pens and 750 uniforms so that needy children could go to school;
• Distributed high school reference books and supplies to more than 230 students, which helped combat high dropout rates. 

When parents are struggling to provide for their children, it is often difficult for them to appreciate the importance of education. Instead of going to school, many children support their parents’ efforts by helping with daily chores such as fetching water or walking with the animals as they graze.

Shelma’s family in the Hidhabu Abote project was no different. His father had sent him away to live with an uncle, thinking he would have a better chance of attending school . His uncle had promised that if Shelma came to stay with him and help out on the farm, he could keep attending school. Unfortunately, he soon broke that promise.

Eventually, with support and encouragement from World Vision staff, Shelma’s family was able to bring him home and re-enrol him in school. Today, he and his family have new hope and confidence for a better future.

Accomplishment: Helping Children and Families Cope with HIV

Emebet is a widow living with HIV, but with World Vision’s support she is earning a living, caring for her children, and making plans for the future. As she weaves baskets, her fingers work quickly. The sale of just one of these baskets buys food for her five children for several days. 

With help from child sponsors, Emebet no longer feels desperate and no longer fears for her children’s future. “[But] if I did not have this help, I would have been in trouble. I would have died and my children would have been scattered everywhere,” she explains.

World Vision’s work is helping this community respond compassionately to people like Emebet. There is still much to be done, but the people now better understand HIV and are beginning to  stand up to protect those whose lives have been affected, especially orphaned and vulnerable children. As they work to overcome stigma and discrimination, they ease the burden not only the sick but on the children whose lives have been so deeply affected.

In Emebet’s town of Ejere — and in areas just like it within the  Hidhabu Abote project — our sponsors are helping people respond to HIV and AIDS.  In 2008:

• More than 700 orphaned and vulnerable children were enrolled in school;
• More than 1,100 people have undertaken voluntary testing and counselling – this is a critical turning point because treatment can make life so much better for affected families;
• 115 more community care members started to watch over and care for orphaned and vulnerable children;
• These community care groups helped some of the most destitute orphaned and vulnerable children get access to grains, dairy cows, and sheep to ensure they have milk, food, and supplementary income;
• People began to speak out about the harmful effects of discrimination; and
• People living with HIV or AIDS received support and formed self-help groups to support each others’ emotional, physical, and economic needs.

“After the death of my husband, I thought it was my turn,” Emebet explains. “I was worrying so much about the children. If we both died, they would be orphaned. There is no one who would look after them.”

Emebet credits the support of World Vision sponsors with changing her life and the lives of her children.

Story: Food for Life

World Vision sponsors can do so much to help children. Sometimes, though, children’s families need extra help.

“Before this program, I had nothing for myself,” Abaru explains.  “The most important thing I learned was how to cultivate apples, how to weed and hoe, and take care of my garden. We have benefited greatly. We are getting hope.”

A few years after her husband’s death, Abaru Gamada had learned that her daughter, Derartu, was to become a sponsored child. Soon, Derartu received regular health check-ups and school supplies so she could stay in school. The benefits of sponsorship really helped this family, but World Vision began to realize that struggling women like Abaru needed more support — and out of this realization the garden and livestock project was launched.

Abaru was one of more than 150 people in Hidhabu Abote to take part in World Vision’s garden and livestock program.  Tools and training helped her learn to produce as many different vegetables to eat and sell as she could. She also received a sheep, a dairy cow, and various seeds.  Abaru says that before she took part in the program, she did not understand the importance of vegetables for Derartu’s growing mind and body. 

Derartu is now 10, and both she and her mother are healthy. The money Abaru collects from her vegetable farm now provides for clothing and many additional food items such as salt and oil.  The support has been so valuable in a country where unpredictable price fluctuations for food, coupled with recurrent drought, have forced many families into desperate circumstances. 

In some of our project areas, we can combine child sponsorship, gifts, and grants to maximize success and to benefit the entire community. Thanks to this project, Derartu and many other children will have access to opportunities and aspirations their mothers could only dream of for their children.

Building on Sponsorship: Essential Nutrition

“I am certain and have no doubt about [my children’s] health now,” Amaru adds. “They will grow up and lead healthy lives.”  Under a fierce sun in Hidhabu Abote, 15 women have gathered for a weekly training session in nutrition and health care.

These weekly sessions are exactly what Amaru needed. Each mother contributes what she can to make meals of porridge, vegetable soup, roasted egg, cabbage, bread, cow’s milk, tea and potatoes. They also learn about personal hygiene, family planning, diarrhea prevention, and antenatal care.

Amaru was once heartbroken and fully expecting the worst as she braced for her daughter’s death. Today, however, with support from World Vision’s Essential Nutrition Package, Kalkidan has another chance, and Amaru and others mothers like her are learning how to combat malnutrition.

“I did not know,” Amaru reveals, speaking about the need to include a variety of foods in her children’s meals. “I was always feeding them the same thing each day.” In most cases, that one thing for children was the local flat bread, enjera, for every meal.  “Now I give the children potato, cabbage, rice, beet root, eggs and barley,” boasts Amaru, her hand gently playing through Kalkidan’s hair.

Kalkidan takes her plate from one of the ladies distributing the food and immediately settles herself into a good lunch. She makes faces at her brother, sending them both into laughing fits.

In the Hidhabu Abote community, this program has already enjoyed some successes in 2008:

• Growth and health monitoring, de-worming and vitamin A capsules improved the health of 145 malnourished children; 
• More than 150 women with children younger than 5 learned about the importance of breastfeeding, complementary feeding, getting immediate care for sick children, maternal nutrition, and vitamin deficiencies;
• 22 mothers learned about essential nutrition practices so they can train others;
• 54 people learned about poultry production, and 72 families received 450 chickens; and 
• 68 community health and 25 government health workers learned about nutrition practices to help educate others.

Healthy children are raised by healthy, informed mothers, and nutrition training is designed to help that process along. Most of the children in Amaru’s group were malnourished not just because of food price increases that are crippling families across Ethiopia, but because their parents had never learned the essentials of good nutrition.