For the last 4 years small groups of Highbury Grove School Year 12 students have been travelling out to Ethiopia and meeting the charities and schools which we support. The charities are based in the capital, Addis Ababa whilst the schools are based in Tigray (Northern Ethiopia).

All year clothes and educational materials have been collected and these will all be given out directly to the charities and schools. We will first make our donations to The Fistula Hospital, Finote Disabled Women's charity, a Women's Refuge and The Kidane Mehret Children's Home in the capital, Addis Ababa. We are also raising money to complete a food run, where we will give out 300 hot meals to some of those living on the streets, who essentially have nothing besides what they have on. We will then travel to Tigray, where we will visit and help out in the schools we support. We have supported 5 schools over the years and are currently working with Enfo School and Engifa School. We will deliver educational to them and the areas are so remote that these supplies will arrive by donkey! Within many schools many students are forced to have lessons whilst sitting on rocks as chairs and when we saw this in the schools we visited we knew we have to do something. So far we have raised enough money for approaching 50 long desks. We have also built a number of classrooms and indeed a complete new building and a repair to the old building at Engifa School last year. This year we will see a completed toilet block at Enfo, following the kind donations we received. This block will be the first proper toilet in the school which has around 1,200 students! Up until recently they had to go to the toilet in a nearby cactus field. The block is almost ready and it should be fully operational by the time we arrive there in early January.

We believe that these students should be given an opportunity to advanced education with good resources and any donation, no matter how small, you can make towards this cause will be highly appreciated and used for these good causes. Every penny is used and will go directly to the charities and/or schools. We are currently looking to buy 20 footballs to take out with us. They will cost us only £120, but the difference these balls will make to our schools will be incredible.

The Year 12 students that will be completing this trip are Joe, Sofonias , Rosa, Darcy-Ann and AJ. Sofonias and Joe will be completing a 5K Run to further add to the money raised.

Thank you!