Written by Laurence
Many of our sponsors’ involvement and commitment to our Sponsorship programme runs over many years, and sees their students through from Elementary School all the way to University. This support is life-changing and epitomises our mission of providing access to quality education for Ethiopian students.
Unfortunately, as we all know, life has a habit of getting in the way of our best laid plans…
As a result, every year we have a small number of sponsors who are forced to stop their involvement in the programme.
We have a number of students who are now facing this situation. We’ve continued to support them and subsidise their sponsorship from other areas of our work, but unfortunately this can’t continue indefinitely.
Here are two of their stories.
Aster (left) lives near to Gondar town in Northern Ethiopia. She’s 16 years old but is studying in Grade 6, as she’s had to cope with numerous interruptions to her education over the years.
She currently makes the 1.5 hour walk from the family farm to and from school every day, twice a day. Her ambition is to become a pilot when she is older, and she knows that “without education I can’t achieve this“.
Hannan (right) also lives in Gondar. Her parents have both passed away so she now lives with her guardian and 4 siblings in a 1-room house.
She is growing increasingly worried that now that she is older, she will have to stop going to school to help support her family by working.
Hannan is a fantastically hard worker and has ambitions to open her own business, and we want her to realise her dreams.
Sponsorship over a number of years has meant that these girls’ ambition has been met with concrete support, and they’ve taken this and made the absolute most of it. We’re not talking about handouts or dependency – just the tools and confidence to succeed. Sponsorship means these students have a new school uniform and resources to make the most of their time at school, and support and training where they need it most.
It also means development projects at their school, providing a whole host of improvements – new classrooms, toilets, teacher training and more – that benefit not only sponsored children but the entire student body.
If you’re interested in support these girls and their schools, please get in touch and pass on this blog post to your friends and family.
Thank you.