Our Goals 2020
Who would have guessed that 2020 would go like this? In any case, we had planned differently… These were our goals last year:
We wanted to support 6 more children (and 4 single mothers) in Bahar Dar and thus expand our 1st project.
In Germany, we wanted to find a way to reduce our account fees.
We were also in talks with the local school to donate one free meal per day to children in need Addis. This project would have run for a year at first, but fortunately it became redundant: From now on, the state takes care of this for all schools in Addis.
Challenges
Locust plague:
in the north of Ethiopia, a renewed plague of locusts led to food shortages – causing prices to rise throughout the country. Unfortunately, it is feared that due to global warming there will be perfect conditions for the pests again this year.
Corona pandemic:
In Ethiopia, schools were closed until December to contain Covid19. However, work was still possible, which helped our families a lot. In Germany, the Corona pandemic meant that all our events had to be cancelled.
Violent conflicts in the Tigray region:
we have written more about this in the following article.
Successes
Despite the special challenges of the last year, we can be proud of our association:
In Addis, Saba, Asrat and Hayat have organised food for homeless teenagers and young adults.
Our families are doing well: they earn their own livelihoods and have successfully demonstrated their self-reliance even during the Corona pandemic. The oldest of the children are increasingly helping out in the association and getting involved.
We were able to reduce our account fees by more than 50%!
And: we started our 2nd project in Bahar Dar by providing the children with clothes and school material.
Outlook
Of course, we have already set goals for 2021: the first was this website!
A refresh of our association’s website was in order, we agreed on this at the last general meeting. Together with MCM Managed Services and WordPress we created this beautiful site!
Furthermore we started our 3rd project: We support a village near Tulu Bolo. Of course, our first two projects are still running.
An important point for the German team is to organise digital meetings and events, as the pandemic seems to stay here a bit longer…