When the United Nations warned that 15 million Ethiopians will need food aid in 2016, Muntada Aid was already on the ground providing relief to the victims of the famine. I joined the organization in 2017, and one of my first tours as its Chief Executive Officer was to Ethiopia.  

In April of 2017, my team was carrying out a food distribution mission in Gewane District, which is some 12-hours’ drive from the country’s bustling capital, Addis Ababa. While we were driving through sun-kissed meadows and rustic hamlets, my mind kept going back to TV reports of the 1980s, showing thousands of children and adults starving to death throughout this otherwise breathtakingly beautiful landscape.    

Ethiopia is a fascinating place of different cultures and natural beauty.  It is also the land of extreme poverty living in parallel with a system that is creating millionaires faster than anywhere else on the continent. Its cities are witnessing an economic miracle, but most of its countryside still rely on foreign food aid for survival. 

As we were moving towards our vehicles after finishing our mission in the remote village of Suq, I saw a group of children had gathered under a tree in the village, holding wooden planks, which the cricket enthusiast in me mistook for makeshift cricket bats. However, as I watched them closely, I realised they were not holding the bats, but wooden boards on which they had carved text in homemade black ink.  The tree above was not their open dressing room, but a pre-primary school.

What hit me most from their situation in life was that they had no hope of a better future. The children in many of these remotes districts of Ethiopia are caught in a cycle of poverty and desolation. I firmly believe that access to better education could help them get out of this vicious cycle. As a Bangladeshi immigrant in the United Kingdom, I am acutely aware of the opportunities an education gave me access to.

With your help, we could lay the foundations for a programme in Suq village focusing on extending access to education by providing these children with a modern school building, teachers, water, sanitation, and hygiene facilities.

The preliminary project cost estimate is £40,000. My personal target to raise GBP 15000 towards the total cost of the project. With your generosity I have already managed to raise over £ 4,600 and with your help, we will be able to reach the target and give the children of Suq hope of a better future, insha'Allah.