Child sponsorship update from Awassa, Ethiopia

Update for child sponsors from the SOS Children's Village Awassa, Ethiopia from Winter 2008.

It is a great pleasure for us to send you the warmest greeting and best wishes with the new developments of SOS Children’s Village Awassa and its affiliated facility. Hoping you are doing fine we wish you merry Christmas and Happy New year.

As earlier times the village again becomes a home for 26 destitute and vulnerable children from different parts of the country. The children soon mix themselves easily with the new environment and those who are old enough also joined the nursery school and started enjoying the new life in the village. On the other hand, sixteen youths are transferred to the youth facilities to experience semi-independent life. They attended orientation program by professionals on how to lead life in the youth facility. Training on life skill and youth psychology was also given to SOS youths by professionals from Hawassa University. Those youth who were believed to be fit have started their life under the supervision of Youth Leaders. It was also in the completed year that one of the girls who grew up in the village got married. The girl who was married last year also becomes a mother of a baby girl. We are very glad to see our children lead their life independently.

Apart from this to strengthen the capacity of our coworkers a training was given for 10 facility leaders on “Leadership and Motivation” in Furra Institute of Development Studies and Education for two consecutive days, which is sponsored by Awassa SOS village.

The President of SOS Children and Deputy General Director visited our village in the completed year. The SOS children and all coworkers welcome them warmly. Moreover the President and the Deputy General Director met the community who benefited from SOS social center Awassa and discussed on different issues. The community members also thanked them on behalf of all the beneficiaries for the opportunity SOS presented.

Most of the children that had been attending the IGCSE (International General Certificate Exam for Secondary Education) program and those who sat for the IB exam were successful. Among those from SOS Children’s Village Awassa two of them went to Ghana, three of them to Swaziland and three of them to Kenya to continue the IB courses that help them to join university for further study. The rest continued the National curriculum in SOS School in Awassa. On the other hand three of our children also joined the program as fresh students after they passed the IGCSE entrance exam.

Children growing up at Awassa, Ethiopia

Celebrations and Co Curricular Activities
Celebrations like the SOS day, the Ethiopian New Year and the founding of the true cross were celebrated warmly with all SOS family members in the village compound. On the SOS day a photo gallery was opened for the invited guests and to the village community that shows the SOS Village Awassa’s activities in the earlier times. The participants appreciated all that has been done so far. On the other hand, all the village clubs are running actively on different activities held in the village. For instance the scout club participated in community works by cleaning the environment and planting trees in the city. Furthermore, they presented a show on SOS day for the audience. Volunteers from Switzerland scout members trained our youth on different skills and scout disciplines for a couple of weeks. On top of this, the Art club children are also doing well in painting and showing different cultural music on different occasions.

The Social Centre
FSP (Family Strengthening Program)
The fathers’ group that is working on the gardening activity for income generation has started selling some of the products in market and they are improving their living standard. The centre also distributed household utensils to people who are living below poverty line to support them and give opportunity for their children care. Besides this, food items were distributed for the needy people after the necessary measures were taken to avoid dependency syndrome in the future.

The social centre family strengthening programme also provided training for 74 mothers on child rights and parenting skills. The training was very intensive and most of the participants cursed their past experience and action against the rights of their children after they had the training. In addition to these, the centre also provided the school materials for 500 OVC (orphaned and vulnerable children) for those who can’t afford stationary materials for the school year of 2008/9. Apart from the above, 228 children were also provided with school materials to attend non-formal education in the city.

Medical Centre
The medical center is providing different services for the SOS staff, SOS children and to the surrounding community. So far it gave services on the area of Awareness raising programs on HIV/AIDS, medical treatment, Voluntary Counseling and Test (VCT), referral services and family planning. The centers provided its services to 6512 individuals and refer five SOS children’s to Addis Ababa Alert Hospital for better treatment during the completed year.

Children's activities at Awassa, Ethiopia

Day Care Centre
The Day care centre has enhanced its capacity by facilitating the children’s education. It is giving pre school education to the children admitted to the centre by providing necessary educational materials. Those children who completed Pre School are transferred to the elementary school after they were provided with the necessary educational materials. Moreover, the centre has admitted additional 26 new children from the disadvantaged part of the community.

Summer Activities (July/August)
Our village youths participated on the fifth SOS Youth Family festival competitions and has gained three cups and four medals in different games and was also awarded different gifts from other villages. During the completed year summer 26 youths of the village were sent to different organisations as apprenticeship to experience the working environment.

SOS School and Nursery School
The SOS School is striving to give the quality of education to all children in the school. The number of students has increased due to the increased number of community children who joined the school and because of the IGCSE program has accepted more children from SOS Children’s Villages Addis Ababa, Makalle, Harar, Bahir Dar and our village. All of our children in grade 8, 10 and 12 who took the National examinations scored good results and successfully promoted to their next grade level. Their success brought motivation for the rest of the children in the school. For the New Year class we have hired new teachers in the place of those who resigned due to personal reasons.

In the year the school also celebrated many commemorations with the school community. Among those, SOS Day and the African Child Day were celebrated in the Village with the village Community. On the other hand, the nursery school has graduated the last level of its nursery school students and they have already started their schooling.

We are very concerned that the economic crisis that is affecting the well-developed nations would have indirect impact on our country as well. Though everyone has been motivated and pledged to speed up the race for better life in the new Ethiopian millennium, we are afraid that the current crisis might still pull us behind. However, we are positive that the measures being taken to address the situation would resolve the crisis and brings better future for everybody.

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, we extend our heartfelt gratitude for your consistent support.

Sincerely Yours,

Aster Alemu (Mrs.)
Village Director, Awassa