WEEMA 2020 Annual Board Retreat a Success!

Every January the WEEMA board of directors and US staff gather to strategize, approve, brainstorm and plan for the the next 12 months.  The retreat consists of two days full of lively discussions, honest debate, thoughtful input, hard work and fun.  This past weekend was no exception.

Together we celebrated our successes, learned from our failures, and matured as an organization.  We look forward to our continued work in partnership with you and the communities we serve and remain dedicated to the values and principles of community-led development.

Onward...

WEEMA US Board and Staff gather to plan for 2020 and beyond

Expanding early education in Tembaro

WEEMA has big plans this year for strengthening pre-primary education in Tembaro – specifically, in Buho and Mudula.

While Tembaro has 39 primary schools, most have few or no classrooms for teaching kindergarten-aged children. In Buho, for example, the primary school has only two classrooms for 320 kindergarten-aged students. As a result of these gaps, thousands of young children in Tembaro are missing out on critical early child learning opportunities. Studies show that kindergarten is a prime developmental stage for cognitive, social-emotional and physical development for 4- to 6-year-old children. 

WEEMA is partnering with community members and local schools in Buho and Mudula to expand kindergarten services. We’re providing materials to build separate kindergarten facilities at primary schools in Buho and Mudula, including classrooms, playgrounds and latrines. (Mudula has three primary schools and we previously added a kindergarten at one of the schools.) We’re also providing early education teacher training.

The new facilities, expected to open in September, will benefit about 600 kindergarten-aged children each year. This, in addition to thousands of young children who have graduated from five other kindergartens we have already built or improved in Mudula and other parts of Tembaro.

Our new kindergartens in Buho and Mudula will result in more graduation ceremonies like this one last year in Tembaro.

Celebrating Timkat in Ethiopia

Timkat celebrations in Ethiopia are marked by priests dressed in white carrying colorful umbrellas.

January is an important month for Ethiopians.

For starters, the country celebrates Genna, or the Ethiopian Christmas, in early January. According to the ancient Julian calendar, which is used in Ethiopia, Christmas falls on January 7 on the popular Gregorian calendar most of us are familiar with.

The word Gennana, which means “imminent” in Amharic, is a reference to the coming of the Lord Jesus and the freeing of mankind from sin.

Another important holiday is Timkat, which falls on January 20 this year due to the leap year. Timkat is an Othodox Christian celebration of the Ethiopian Epiphany. It marks the baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan River.

 Pilgrims come from far and wide to take part in the three-day festival and witness the reenactment of the baptism. All over the country, including in southwestern Ethiopia where WEEMA largely works, large crowds assemble as the religious festivities commence, with spectacular processions, song, dance and prayer.

In the capital, Addis Ababa, the festival is particularly spectacular. The streets are adorned with green, red and yellow to represent the Ethiopian flag and priests walk through the streets holding colorful, richly decorated umbrellas. 

We wish a happy Genna and wonderful Timkat celebration to our friends who are honoring these special days.

End of year gains on cataracts, digital health and hospital sanitation

This 18-year-old boy was one of hundreds whose eyesight was restored by cataract surgery in 2019.

Sure, it’s 2020, but we have a few more end-of-the-year successes we’d like to share, all of them related to improved healthcare delivery in Ethiopia. Among them: 

·      Imagine running a hospital without a laundry machine. Day after day, large piles of soiled linens, surgical towels and hospital gowns need to be washed by hand. Last fall WEEMA installed a new washing machine at the Mudula Primary Hospital, the only hospital in Tembaro. It’s been enormously appreciated, saving staff time and ensuring clean and safe linens for patients and hospital workers.  

·      Based on feedback from a dozen government officials, hospital representatives and other groups at a year-end evaluation meeting, our 2019 Cataract Campaign in Hosanna was a smashing success and plans for a 2020 campaign in February, again in Hosanna, are already well underway. The cataract campaigns are organized every year with the Himalayan Cataract Project. Last year’s five-day campaign restored eyesight for more than 900 Ethiopians. Cataracts are the leading cause of preventable blindness in the country, affecting an estimated 2.4 percent of rural populations.

·      We successfully trained more than 100 local health extension workers (HEWs), midwives and primary health unit directors in Kembata-Tembaro on a digital healthcare tool that has shown enormous promise in improving healthcare delivery services for children and mothers in rural areas. Training sessions were held in Mudula, Hadero and Durame.

 We’ll surely have many more successes to report in 2020!

Exciting gains in WEEMA's inclusive education program

Students at the Mudula Primary School teaching and learning from each other last month.

Happy 2020! To kick-start the New Year, we wanted to update you about exciting progress in our inclusive education program in the Tembaro District.

As you may recall, WEEMA recently outfitted the district’s first school with inclusive education, the Mudula Primary School, with wheelchairs, an entrance ramp and trained teachers who can teach young children with disabilities. More than 30 children with disabilities, a mix of boys and girls, began attending the school last fall – an important first in giving children with disabilities more educational opportunities in Tembaro.

We saw more progress in December. We were excited to observe a dozen students leading an outdoor “buzz group,” where students teach and learn from each other. This boosts the students’ learning capabilities and enhances academic performance.

We also provided sign language training last month for all of the school’s teachers, a dozen parents and nine deaf students – two girls and seven boys. The training, provided by an inclusive education expert from Tembaro, was hugely popular and it opens the door for more deaf and other students with disabilities to attend Mudula Primary School.

Such a great way to start 2020!