Mediterranea NGO – Newsletter
Dear friends
and members of Mediterranea NGO,
I am Victoria Baldo and I am in charge of the Ethiopia projects. I travel to the
country 3 or 4 times a year. The purpose of this letter is to inform you
about my last mission and to let you know what we are doing in Ethiopia.
The Abugida
school in Akaki.
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As you know
we have a school in Akaki with 135 children between the ages of 2 and 6.
Since the beginning of the academic year Mediterranea has taken over the school,
we pay the staffs salaries, we provide the children with 3 meals a day, we
provide the stationary, and we pay for the maintenance and repairs in the
school.
It has been a great satisfaction to see how healthy and energetic the children
have become over the last few months. It is also very evident that
the children are very happy in the school. Ethiopia is suffering a rapid
inflation rate and so we had to make adjustments to the staffs salaries. Life is
becoming very difficult in this country.
We held a meeting with the parents of the school and organized a parents
association which will help with the running of the school and its
development. The parents manifested their worry as to what was going to happen
to their children once they had to leave the school. They stated
that they could not afford to feed the children in the manner in which they are
being fed at present and that they feared for their well being in the
future. We will be studying possible solutions to the problem and even
contemplating extending in to primary education. Our team in Akaki are
going to carry out an evaluation of every child and their family. We intend to
identify those at risk of illness so as to be able to help them and provide the
attention they may need.
We are thinking of organizing a summer school so that the more vulnerable
children can eat properly during the summer holidays . Their summer is
actually the cold season so proper nutrition is even more important at that time
of year. Child mortality rate is very high in Africa and if we
can help them reach the age of six they will probably survive and reach
adulthood.
We intend to have all the children checked out in a private medical center in
Akaki. The public health center has no doctor that can carry out these check
ups. HIV positive children will be entered in to a government program
established for such identified cases. We would provide the complementary
medication and the early diagnosis so as to better the prognosis for these
children.
Next year we intend to use the classrooms in the evenings to give reading and
writing lessons to local women so at to better their job opportunities.
Entoto Clinic Nº2.
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We have started collaborating with this center based in the Yenka Entoto area.
The clinic has one registered nurse and six auxiliaries. There are no doctors.
They attend a population of over 55000 people. As they had no medicines when we
visited the center we provided them with 3 months worth of medication. We
managed to get the government medicines supply depot to sell us the medication.
We intend to keep on helping this clinic.
If you wish to see the clinic search for Entoto at www.youtube.com or else you
can visit : http://www.youtube.com/ongmediterranea
The little school at Yeka
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The Yeka school is a very small humble school that is attended by 100 children
from the area that have no place in the state schools as the
schools are either full or the children's parents can not afford to buy them
uniforms so as to be able to attend the schools.
The school is run by three retired teachers. They do this out of compassion and
they receive nothing for doing this. The school has 3 class rooms where
the children are divided according to age and knowhow. No child is rejected.
The land on which the school is built is large and there is plenty of space to
build a kitchen and a dining hall. Mediterranea would like to collaborate
initially with this school rebuilding the toilets and providing a means for the
children to be able to wash their hands.
Visiting nurses and doctors.
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We are in close contact with the Ethiopian Medical Association as we intend to
send nurses and doctors from Spain to do volunteer work in
Ethiopia. Unfortunately a high percentage of local graduates leave for
other countries as soon as they finish their studies and so there is a desperate
need of qualified help. For example there is only one onchologist for the whole
country
We now await the EMAs responce to our offer and our symbolic demands. The
administration takes its time and we expect an official answer in the
next couple of months. As we now have a representative in Ethiopia we will
soon start the process of registering our organization in the country. This will
make our work over there easier.
Summing up we feel that the mission has been very satisfactory and it was very
pleasing to see how well the children in Abugida were and how they were
developing. If you would like to know more about this mission or about our
programs in Ethiopia please feel free to get in touch with me at: vbj@arrakis.es
Thank you all for your help and support,
yours sincerely
Victoria Baldo
In the near future we will be placing new videos on the Youtube site and we will
be updating our web page at: www.direct-help.info or at
www.mediterranea.org.es.
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OTHER PROJECTS:
We are pleased to announce that Mediterranea has handed over a tractor to the
Drifting Angels Orphanage in Ho Ghana on the 27th of March. This has been
carried out by Bryan Harris and his team in Ghana and the UK. A very special
mention goes to Carolina Quintas.
We will be updating the web soon on this and providing more detailed
information.
At the same time we wish to inform you that we are preparing our container full
of medical and general supplies for La Havana, Cuba. We will be
providing help to:--------
3 senior citizens homes
a children's rehabilitation center
a senior citizens rehabilitation center
a school for women
a school
a large medical center in the old part of the city and
an intensive care unit
I will be going over with a volunteer to distribute the supplies and train the
staff on how to use some of them. On our web page you will have noticed that we
are assembling our own computers which will help to educate people for the
future. Thank you for your support and encouragement.
Yours sincerely
Michael Stoma