Our Missions

The group called “ChangeForEthiopia: You and I Can Change The World” returned from their assessment trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2009.  This was our second trip to there and we currently focus on three areas in which we feel our fundraising makes the biggest impact.  All three areas have a United States 501c3 not-for-profit status. All three areas concentrate on sustainability: education and training of impoverished children/orphans/street children.  We found through this trip that the most important thing we can do as Americans is to not recreate the wheel but to support Ethiopians helping to build up Ethiopia.  There are incredible things happening all over Africa, amazing ministries taking place right before our eyes!  We do not want to create “Dependence Syndrome” by offering free handouts and charity so it is our choice to encourage and support what is already good that is occurring in Ethiopia.

#1: Bright Hope Project:

The Bright Hope (“Birhu Tesfa”) Primary School is located in the leprosy colony of Korah on the edge of Addis Ababa.  Most of the 2100+ children are desperately poor with one or both parents living with leprosy, HIV or AIDS (if there is a parent at all).  ChangeForEthiopia was asked to partner with this school, the Ethiopian Government and Children’s Hope International (St. Louis) on a $250K project to build a sustainable garden with chickens where the children can learn a trade and grow much needed food with potential to sell the excess for profit.  We purchased two of three chicken houses (the laying house for hens, $6000) and the rooster house ($6000) and the supplies to go with it.  Other donors have sponsored a new well ($20,000) and the hatching house ($6000).  The children finally have water at school; it’s been two years!  We’re SO excited to help!  But there’s so much more to be done.

Funds are still needed for: restoration of 1.5 acre garden ($21,000), masonry wall ($20,000 to protect the entire project from looting and destruction~there are more donors needed at this time for this portion of what was originally around $180,000).

TO GO: The School is always interested in having missionaries or work groups come and help with any portion of the building projects or to help in the classrooms.  One of the unique things that we as English speakers can give them is time for them to work on their English conversational skills with us.  This would be for their upper-level English classes and perhaps one-on-one tutors.  Also, a class in leprosy disease transmission (for any of you microbiologists out there or just someone with access to the Internet…) is something that was of great interest to the headmaster there at one time.

HOW TO GIVE: If you are interested in sponsoring this project, you can go to http://chi.convio.net/goto/ChangeForEthiopia and donate online.  Or you can write checks to “Children’s Hope Foundation” and put in memo “Bright Hope Project” and send them c/o Mackenzies, 2024 Prairie Avenue, Quincy, IL  62301.

#2. Compassion Family International: Schools for Impoverished Children:

We met Peter Aberas and fell in love with this strong, quiet, Spirit-filled leader.  Peter was a World Vision  International-sponsored child when he was younger and later became the director for YoungLife in northern Ethiopia.  Now, on his own, he has put together his first successful school for street children in Kechene (“Kaish-jawn-ee”), an extremely impoverished area on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.  Local officials so far have referred 85 children to Peter for KG1, KG2 and first grade.  He’s hoping to add more grade levels soon.

In 2008, Peter began another school for 25 children in the Lafto region.  Again, he continues work with local officials to identify the desperately needy and to provide a meal and schooling for them.   He says, “The children cannot learn if they have hungry stomachs.”  But with his YoungLife experience and training, he has also identified another need: young single mothers.  To this end, he has brought young mothers under his wing at the Lafto compound to teach them skills and a trade so they can feed and support their children without turning to prostitution.

ChangeForEthiopia purchased many supplies, kitchen items, desks, tables and chairs for the Lafto school.  Our team felt very strongly about the work that Peter is doing for the destitute and the forgotten.  There are so many needs here right now!

Recently, Peter just gave all of the children underwear and taught them why they need to wear it.  In the past, he has given them education and supplies for dental care (they didn’t know about brushing their teeth) as well as “Ethics” and why you should not lie, cheat or steal.  Compassion Family International Schools will use whatever you bring: supplies, skills, whatever!  If you are interested in volunteering here to teach (you are teaching them life/survival skills), cook, or just love on children, please contact us.

HOW TO GIVE: If you are interested in sponsoring this project, you can go to http://www.hopeheritage.org/SupportIHH.html and donate online under the project designation “Compassion Family International.”  Or you can write checks to “International Hope Heritage” and put in memo “Compassion Family International” and send them c/o Mackenzies, 2024 Prairie Avenue, Quincy, IL  62301.

#3. Ephrem’s Street Soccer Ministry:

 

Growing up living on the streets of Addis Ababa was a tough life for Ephrem Hagos.  He lived as a street child for five years, so he understands what 10 million children are going through right now in Ethiopia: the desperation, the starvation, the victimization. Ephrem is one of the success stories, though, and he has a heart to serve those whose circumstances once mirrored his own.

Soccer is huge in Ethiopia, with many young boys dreaming of being the next David Beckham (England) or Didiere Drogba (Ivory Coast), especially after the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.  Soccer and Jesus are Ephrem’s passions and he attracts young boys to him with his quiet, gentle spirit, teaching them “how to be men” by instructing them as a team, telling stories of his own past, and combining it all under the umbrella of Christ’s redemption.

“Soccer Ephrem” as we call him, started out with 20 boys, training them three days a week, scheduling games and feeding them dinner when he can afford to do so.  They started more than two years ago, playing on asphalt, some of them playing in sandals.  Their goals were two rocks.

Since then, Ephrem’s ministry has grown to 120 boys with five coaches.  He has rented a field with a shelter so he can teach the boys to dribble, pass and score on real grass.  In 2009, they gathered other teams together from around Addis Ababa and played for “The Mackenzie Cup” (can you imagine how honored and humbled we are?).  The message of hope is reaching more and more street children!

And they still play their hearts out for anyone willing to watch.  Everywhere we went with Ephrem, the children called his name.  He has relationships everywhere.

The ChangeForEthiopia team was extremely impressed with Ephrem, feeling that there is such potential for him to reach these street children for Christ.  He encourages them not to steal but to use whatever skills they have to earn an honest wage if they can.  One of his ideas is to be able to purchase shoe shine kits for each of the boys to have a trade to use and make money for themselves on the street.   This is one of the primary ways that boys can earn money honestly in Ethiopia.

Ephrem’s ultimate goal for his team is to get the boys into school.  The ability to be on the team will be tied to regular school attendance.  It costs $50 a year to educate a child in the public school system in Ethiopia.  Could you sponsor one boy for the year?

HOW TO GIVE: If you are interested in donating to Ephrem Hagos’ ministry, currently you have to write a check to “International Hope Heritage” and put “Ephrem Hagos” in the memo.  Send the checks c/o Mackenzie, 2024 Prairie Avenue, Quincy, IL  62301 and we will get them to International Hope Heritage.

 

Bright Hope School Update: February, 2010

The 2100 students at Bright Hope School in Addis Ababa are drinking clean fresh water again. It has been almost four years since safe drinking water was available at the school. After the drilling hit water in late October, pipes were laid so water would flow toward the garden location, the designated area for the three chicken houses and to multiple spigots available to the students for washing and drinking.

Also, construction on the first chicken house began last week with the help of our friends from Reckless Abandon Ethiopia, led by David and Erica Shubin. The mini-farm project will provide a laying house, hatching house and rooster house.  ChangeForEthiopia: You and I Can Change The World funded the laying house and part of the rooster house. This self-sustaining chicken hatchery at the Bright Hope School will provide meals with fresh eggs and chicken for all the students.

The preparation of the vegetable garden and protective fencing will begin shortly.  Our thanks to Children’s Hope International (http://orphan.childrenshope.net/) for bringing this great opportunity to help the children of Ethiopia to our attention.

If you are interested in missions opportunities, the school would be happy to have any groups who are able to teach English or disease transmission (specifically transmission of leprosy or AIDS) to their students.  The school is located in a leprosy colony; some of the students and many parents also have AIDS.

“Soccer” Ephrem: His Testimony and His Mission In His Own Words

It’s all the very purpose of a Christian journey to share the challenges and exciting moments of our lives, therefore, I am glad to pour it out so that it may be encouraging and inspiring for you and to any one you are sharing with in the course of your ministry to the Lord.

I have been grown up in the middle of gloomy version of poverty that severely escalated as the result of family break down, my parents divorced while I was only a couple years old; that technically determined my fate to be raised by abusive father and step mother. My mom saving her life, left us, my siblings and I with no option, and fled away from the capital, Addis Ababa, where she ensures significant distance from my dad. At the age of eight my dad after being hospitalized for several months passed away. A few months later my aunt, in dad’s line, took me to her house to raise me.

However, as she was poor, it was pretty hard to her to feed and send me school. Therefore, in that very young age I started to bear the responsibility of wining my daily bread by going out and carrying people’s stuff in the market places. I think this led me to go out on the streets and make my own life. After a couple years of stay with my aunt, I left her and joined the agony of street life near to my dad’s place that is around the head quarter of Serving In Mission (SIM) close to Black Lion Hospital.

My older brother who was already supporting his livelihood by shining shoes bought me some shoe shining materials so that I may also support myself. Living in the street other than the indecency of obtaining basic needs to survive, it exposed me to various physical and verbal abuses inflected by other senior street guys, the police and even the society. Suffering in the agonies of street life, God started to stretch out his love through the missionaries I came to know while shining their shoes. It was through the missionaries I first came to be introduced with the Lord and even sent to school by one of the missionaries called Yvonne Mildred. My life tremendously started to change holistically, spiritually as well as physically. The six years of misery ended with joining my brother and sister to live together and with the inspiration to lead other thousands of street kids to decent life humanity deserves.

The ministry I am imprinted to serving is already flourishing in creating hope to the kids on the streets and the local kids who hardly maintains their needs from their parents. The ministry, with the vision of displaying the love of God through serving the street and under privileged youths in the community, adopted the following principal objectives: Character development; Paving educational opportunity; Socialization of street kids; and Providing basic needs such as food and shelter. In order to implement these essential objectives we have planed to gather the kids around the soccer teams; accordingly, we have teamed up the kids in to six groups and undertook a tournament. We believed the soccer teams significantly serve our objectives particularly in taming the kids in discipline, obviously in Christian values, and socialization with each other and the communities.

Currently, we have a total of hundred and one kids from whom more than half of them are street kids and the rest are from poor families. As many of them raised, so to say, in the street, it is not easy to figure how old they are since they do not have any birth certificate. But, they can be estimated from five to ten and between ten and fifteen. The non street kids live in terribly deteriorated shanty houses and most of them raised by single mothers. Therefore, even if they go to school hardly provided with food and learning materials. Because of this many of them seldom attend school, instead they go out to market places to find some work such as carrying sacks. The situation of the street kids is severely terrible. Their daily food is either obtained from restaurant left over or from begging on the street. Regarding shelter they sleep along the side walk and under drainages of the road. This extremely worsens during the rainy season. Schooling is unthinkable to the street kids.

Based on the support you guys brought us we were able to offered the kids some sport materials so that they may gather.
Besides, we managed to feed them once in a week by raising money from different sources; however, due to financial impediment we hardly mange to continue. In the previous couple weeks in collaboration with the Youth For Christ Ethiopia we gave them summer schooling.

The ministry desperately seeks your assistance in prayer and financial support so that according to our plan the kids may be fed continuously and sent to school. Along side striving to provide permanent shelter to the street kids in the long run, we are finding a temporary sheltering, for the street kids, by renting; in order to do so we need a financial support.

I am so excited to hear from you that you already have the enthusiasm to support us in anyway possible and that’s realy a great help for all of the kids and i just wanna say thank you so much!!!

Blessings,

Ephrem

ChangeForEthiopia Team Identifies Three Needs

The group called “ChangeForEthiopia: You and I Can Change The World” returned from their assessment trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (this was our second time) and is focusing on three areas in which we feel our fundraising makes the biggest impact.  All three areas have a United States 501c3 not-for-profit status. All three areas concentrate on sustainability: education and training of impoverished children/orphans/street children.  We found through this trip that the most important thing we can do as Americans is to not recreate the wheel but to support Ethiopians helping to build up Ethiopia.  There are incredible things happening all over Africa, amazing ministries taking place right before our eyes!  We do not want to create “Dependence Syndrome” by offering free handouts and charity so it is our choice to encourage and support what is already good that is occurring in Ethiopia.

#1: Bright Hope Project:

The Bright Hope (“Birhu Tesfa”) Primary School is located in the leprosy colony of Korah on the edge of Addis Ababa which we visited.  Most of the 1200+ children are desperately poor with one or both parents living with leprosy, HIV or AIDS (if there is a parent at all).  ChangeForEthiopia was asked to partner with this school, the Ethiopian Government and Children’s Hope International (St. Louis) on a $250K project to build a sustainable garden with chickens where the children can learn a trade and grow much needed food with potential to sell the excess for profit.  We purchased two of three chicken houses (the laying house for hens, $6000) and the rooster house ($6000) and the supplies to go with it.  Other donors have sponsored a new well ($20,000) and the hatching house ($6000).  The children finally have water at school; it’s been two years!  We’re SO excited to help!  But there’s so much more to be done.

Funds are still needed for: restoration of 1.5 acre garden ($21,000), masonry wall ($20,000 to protect the entire project from looting and destruction~there are more donors needed at this time for this portion of what was originally $180,000).

HOW TO GIVE: If you are interested in sponsoring this project, you can go to http://chi.convio.net/goto/ChangeForEthiopia and donate online.  Or you can write checks to “Children’s Hope Foundation” and put in memo “Bright Hope Project” and send them c/o Mackenzies, 2024 Prairie Avenue, Quincy, IL  62301.

#2. Compassion Family International: Schools for Impoverished Children:

We met Peter Aberas and fell in love with this strong, quiet leader.  Peter was a World Vision  International-sponsored child when he was younger and later became the director for YoungLife in northern Ethiopia.  Now, on his own, he has put together his first successful school for street children in Kechene (“Kai-sjawn-ee”), an extremely impoverished area on the outskirts of Addis Ababa.  Local officials so far have referred 85 children to Peter for KG1, KG2 and first grade.  He’s hoping to add more grade levels soon.

In 2008, Peter began another school for 25 children in the Lafto region.  Again, he continues work with local officials to identify the desperately needy and to provide a meal and schooling for them.   He says, “The children cannot learn if they have hungry stomachs.”  But with his YoungLife experience and training, he has also identified another need: young single mothers.  To this end, he has brought young mothers under his wing at the Lafto compound to teach them skills and a trade so they can feed and support their children without turning to prostitution.

ChangeForEthiopia purchased many supplies, kitchen items, desks, tables and chairs for the Lafto school.  Our team felt very strongly about the work that Peter is doing for the destitute and the forgotten.  There are so many needs here right now!  If you are interested in volunteering here to teach, cook, or just love on children, please contact us.

HOW TO GIVE: If you are interested in sponsoring this project, you can go to http://www.hopeheritage.org/SupportIHH.html and donate online under the project designation “Compassion Family International.”  Or you can write checks to “International Hope Heritage” and put in memo “Compassion Family International” and send them c/o Mackenzies, 2024 Prairie Avenue, Quincy, IL  62301.

#3. Soccer Ephrem’s Street Soccer Ministry:

Growing up living on the streets of Addis Ababa was a tough life for Ephrem Hagos.  He lived as a street child for five years, so he understands what 10 million children are going through right now in Ethiopia: the desperation, the starvation, the victimization. Ephrem is one of the success stories, though, and he has a heart to serve those whose circumstances once mirrored his own.

Soccer is huge in Ethiopia, with many young boys dreaming of being the next David Beckham (England) or Didiere Drogba (Ivory Coast), especially after the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.  Soccer and Jesus are Ephrem’s passions and he attracts young boys to him with his quiet, gentle spirit, teaching them “how to be men” by instructing them as a team, telling stories of his own past, and combining it all under the umbrella of Christ’s redemption.  Currently, he is discipling 20 boys, training them three days a week, scheduling games and feeding them dinner when he can afford to do so.  They play on asphalt, some of them play in sandals.  Their goals are two rocks.  But they play their hearts out for anyone willing to watch.  Everywhere we went with Ephrem, the children called his name.  He has relationships everywhere.

The ChangeForEthiopia team was extremely impressed with Ephrem, feeling that there is such potential for him to reach these street children for Christ.  He encourages them not to steal but to use whatever skills they have to earn an honest wage if they can.  Ephrem’s next step for his team is to get the boys into school.  The ability to be on the team will be tied to regular school attendance.  It costs $50 a year to educate a child in Ethiopia.  Could you sponsor one boy for the year?

HOW TO GIVE: If you are interested in donating to Ephrem Hagos’ ministry, currently you have to write a check to “International Hope Heritage” and put “Ephrem Hagos” in the memo.  Send the checks c/o Mackenzie, 2024 Prairie Avenue, Quincy, IL  62301 and we will get them to International Hope Heritage.