Why Do We Work in Ethiopia

  • Ethiopia has the highest rate of children dying in the world before the age of 5.
  • 40% of children are nutritionally stunted, meaning they are cognitively and physically underdeveloped and are less likely to reach their full potential
  • Less than 30% of children are accessing early years education. This means that not only will these children be impacted in their later life, but this will also have long term effects on Ethiopia’s development as a country.
  • 20% of Ethiopia’s population is under the age of 8. This means there are approximately 18 million children who could potentially benefit from our programmes which aim to increase access to quality Early Childhood Education.
  • 44% of the population is living in poverty with many young children at risk. Using shared learning from our past programmes in Tanzania, we believe that we possess the experience to have a positive impact on both children and their communities within Ethiopia.

Our Programme of Work

In Ethiopia, we implement our Early Childhood Development Programme in the Oromia Region and the capital city of Addis Ababa as follows:

Integrated School Readiness Programme: The focus of this programme is ensuring that children have the social and learning skills needed to start formal education and fulfil their potential. The programme creates stimulating and colourful classroom environments, trains teachers in early years education, supports school leadership to understand early years education and engages parents to supproot their children at home.

Barriers to Quality Early Learning: We realise that we cannot work with schools without recognising the challenges children face in the wider community that prevent them from attending school. These barriers include poor nutrition, lack of access to safe water and poverty.

The Nourish Programme: In partnership with St Luke’s Hosptial in Wolisso (Oromia region), this programme supports a Therapeutic Feeding Unit to treat severely malnourished children. The unit is complemented by an extensive outreach programme of 250 trained health extension workers that engage with vulnerable communities to prevent malnutrition and identify and refer cases to the therapeutic feeding unit if needed.

This programme also identifies communities with a high volume of people contracting waterborne diseases and provides them with access to safe, clean water through the installation of wells in their villages.

Key Achievements:

  • 354 children given lifesaving treatment at St Luke’s Therapeutic Feeding Programme – with an improved mortality rate of 1.6%.
  • 240 health extension workers provided nutritional support to a population of 1.1 million people – completing around 50,000 home visits during the year
  • 55 people from vulnerable families were successfully employed in income generating activities that will sustain their families in the long term
  • Emergency food relief provided to 120 families in Addis Ababa
  • 2 Shallow Wells build to provide safe water to approximately 1500 families in Wolisso
  • 1 Deep Well completed at St Luke’s hospital to guarantee access to safe water throughout the hospital and during the dry season. The hospital treats over 10,000 patients every year.

Learn more about our current programmes which focus on ensuring that children have access to good nutrition, quality education and are healthy and happy.

Over the years we have had the privilege of working with many inspiring people as well as changing the lives of many children who will now be able to reach their full potential.

Click here to read some of our case studies and stories from our 15 years of changing lives in Ethiopia

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