IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO DONATE TO HOPE, THIS PAGE IS STILL OPEN TO DONATIONS. MANY THANKS!
READ ON TO HEAR MORE ABOUT THE TRIP...
I just wanted to say thank you for sponsoring me to do the Great Ethiopian Run and raise money for Hope International Development Agency. The whole experience was amazing. I had never been out of Europe before let alone go to a developing country.
After a long and sleepless flight overnight we arrived at Addis Ababa (the capital of Ethiopia) and after a good strong coffee we got to grips with sightseeing in and around the capital. It is a city of contrasts - as maybe most cities are - with huge high rise buildings alongside shanty towns made from cob and corrugated iron. There are people everywhere, sat on the roadside, standing around in groups chatting, sleeping on the pavement, begging at road junctions. Shops are open fronted to the street which adds to the hustle and bustle.
We spent all our time with HOPE Ethiopian staff who are so inspiring. HOPE works predominantly in water development in Ethiopia, providing mainly gravity fed water supplies to rural communities who don’t have access to clean, safe drinking water. HOPE only works with communities that ask them to. These projects are long term commitments which last many years due to the complexity and the distance that the water has to come. Although primarily it is expensive to put in gravity fed water systems are sustainable, affordable and easy to maintain by the community. The HOPE staff live in the villages and get to know the community and work alongside them as they help build the water supply. They provide health and sanitation training and a water committee is set up from the communities to maintain and look after the water supply.
The Derashe project in Southern Ethiopia has been completed recently after 17 years. Access to clean water has risen from 7% to 84% - this is better than Addis! The neighbouring region containing 33 villages have asked for help and Hope plans to implement the water/sanitation projects there providing clean water to 180,000 people of which only 14% have access to safe drinking water. The reality of giving communities clean water to drink is clear - health improves, crops can be grown and those that had to walk miles to find water (in Ethiopian culture, the women and girls), can have a chance to be educated. Through meeting a basic need, life is really transformed. Exciting stuff!
Due to our short trip we didn’t have time to visit the water projects but we spent 2 days volunteering at a HOPE supported project - Save Lives Ethiopia - that works with children who are affected by HIV/AIDS. The project works with poverty stricken families providing community based care, sponsoring children through school, providing health and sex education through schools, a HIV clinic and a study centre. The centre that will provide study rooms and a library plans to open in the next 2 months. We catalogued books to help set up the library. We also visited some of the families being helped by this project.
The families we visited live in small houses with one room. I was very humbled meeting Mums like me with the same aged children as me. They have so little yet are so grateful for what they do have and the help they receive. Save Lives Ethiopia sponsor one child per family to go to school. At present, they are able to help about 400 children. One child, who we met was proud to show off his school jumper, bag and books. My heart went out to the other siblings who can’t get a place at school. The need for a study centre was all too obvious as 5 of us squashed into a one roomed house where one child lived with his mother and grandmother. Children who are orphaned live in group houses with a a community worker (who come from the area but work for SaLE) visiting them daily to help with homework, washing, food etc.
On our last day of our visit we did the Great Ethiopian Run. I had been secretly dreading this part as I’m definitely not a runner and feared letting the team down as I crawled along behind! I shouldn’t have worried. 33,000 people filled Meskil Square and the race was started by Haile Gebrselassie and Paula Radcliffe. The whole atmosphere was electrifying and you couldn’t help but join in with the singing and chanting as the huge crowd of green T-shirted runners snaked though the city. Our HOPE team finished in 1 hour 40 minutes (10 minutes slower than Chaz’s time last year!).
I felt very privileged to be able to go and see firsthand what HOPE International Development Agency is doing. The money I have raised thanks to you is going to make a significant, life transforming change in people’s lives at a very basic level so thank you!
If you feel inspired to support HOPE’s work or visit its projects in Ethiopia and do the Great Ethiopian Run next year let me know!
Many thanks again,
Cath Hickman x
