Link Ethiopia’s Annual Report for 2012-2013 was published last month and we are really pleased to share it with you.
We saw a year of continued growth, with our overall income increasing by 38% and with an increase in the number of schools and young people we were able to support.
Thanks to the generosity of our many supporters we were able to deliver improved facilities, resources and training to more schools than ever before. We managed 25 library and book projects, 7 classroom and furniture projects, 8 water and toilet projects, 4 technology projects, 9 sports projects, and 10 other projects supporting teaching and training. We enabled over 6,500 students in different continents to learn about each other and to share their aims and aspirations, we facilitated over 2,500 hours of additional teaching, and supported over 160 children at risk of dropping out of school.
We could not have done any of this without your help. Thank you so much for joining with us to change lives through education!
You can download our full report here. What follows are some very brief highlights of the year…
School linking
We now support 125 active school links with 6,570 students involved in linking correspondence (an increase of 35% on the previous year).
This year we ensured the links we are working with are those that are most active and engaged. We supported 99 primary school links and 26 secondary school links by coordinating exchange visits, producing termly resource packs and weekly e-newsletters on global issues relevant to both countries, facilitating exchanges of letters and shared learning activities around these themes, and promoting more student led involvement in linking activities.
Child sponsorship
During the year we increased the number of children we sponsor by 13%, to 163, and we have extended the sponsorship programme to 22 schools. In our annual report we feature 16 year old Amanuel’s story. He has been sponsored since 2008 and last year won a regional prize for creativity. He believes that without sponsorship he wouldn’t have been able to continue at school. We are really proud of his achievements.
Volunteer teaching
The volunteering scheme remains popular and is still catering for a wide range of ages and talents. During the year 17 volunteers taught in Ethiopia, primarily focussing on the teaching of English Communication Skills to primary and secondary school students, but also helping with computer training, sports coaching and other activities. One of our volunteers, for example, spent two weeks sharing his expertise in photography with students in Bishoftu. English tutorials for teachers were also organised.
In total these volunteers taught over 2,500 hours of lessons to approximately 1,100 students. There were slightly fewer volunteers when compared with the previous year and we really want to find more! Get involved?
Projects
2012-13 was an exciting year of growth but also focus. We put a particular emphasis on delivering larger and more effective projects by working in partnership with other organisations, and our focus has been to improve the quality of education and to increase equal access to schooling.
We raised 31% more for projects in the north and south of Ethiopia and these projects reached 19% more schools compared with the previous year. Below are just a few highlights.
Dukem No 1 School classrooms, community partnership – we worked in close partnership with the Dukem No 1 Elementary School community, two World Challenge groups and the local education office as we built a new block of four classrooms which has reduced the student to classroom ratio by 20%. The local community contributed 20% of the total project cost.
Tsadiku Yohannes School projects, C-GSCA partnership – we continued our partnership with the Corvallis-Gondar Sister Cities Association to support Tsadiku Yohannes Elementary School. A ‘model classroom’ for teacher training was created which formed part of a teacher professional development training week. The school library was equipped with relevant subject specific and reference books and a new librarian was hired and given library management training. Computers have been provided and the government has funded an IT teacher. 28 teachers received teacher training.
Hamle 19 School girls’ toilets, group expedition partnership – we have worked in partnership with Inspire Worldwide and Headington School to build a girls’ toilet block at Hamle 19 Elementary School. Over 900 girls at the school now have access to decent sanitation facilities.
Yekatit 23 School ‘Kids Who Care’ enterprise partnership – with seed funding for training and materials from Queniborough Primary School, students at Yekatit 23 Elementary School have been making crafts for sale in the UK. Profits are funding improved kindergarten facilities at Yekatit 23. During the year 93 bags were sold and there are plans to expand the project by making friendship bracelets.
As well as delivering…
- Library and book projects at 25 schools
- Water projects at 4 schools
- Toilet projects at 3 schools
- Sports projects at 9 schools
- Classroom and furniture projects at 7 schools
- Technology projects at 4 schools
- And a range of other projects at 10 schools.
Future projects:
In 2013-14 we will be building on our projects work with a greater focus on developing more multi-school projects, on specific themes, and making education in Ethiopia more inclusive and accessible. We have planned a package of inter-linked interventions improving literacy and learning outcomes for students across more than 20 northern and southern elementary and secondary schools. We are also planning to deliver a customised educational support project for children with disabilities across more than 10 schools. Thank you for your support.
Income
Thanks to your amazing support we raised a record £289,327:
Expenditure
Here is how your donations were used to support education:
Read the full report
You can download the full report here, and you can browse through it without downloading below (click in the middle to view it fullscreen). Enjoy!
(PS – Our apologies if you find the Volunteer Teaching section isn’t displaying properly above. But you can read it fully by downloading the PDF version here!)
(PPS – if you don’t see anything above, your browser doesn’t have the Adobe Flash plugin. You can get it here: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/)
Thank you!
Thank you so much for your support during the year! We feel incredibly fortunate to work with so many people in so many countries who all share the same vision of changed lives in Ethiopia through education. Here’s to the future and what we can all achieve together!
The Link Ethiopia team.