November 2007
Inside The Country
Ethiopia Trip
You can read hundreds of books and watch countless stories on suffering in Africa, yet nothing really prepares you for the reality that is Ethiopia. All the things that one sees on the television or reads about in the papers, they are not isolated circumstances and exceptions to the rule; this is the general state of things. People are really dying every day from easily preventable causes and millions of children are in fact being orphaned by poverty, disease, and malnutrition. Most intersections in the capital city of Addis Ababa are crowded with beggars, street children, and mothers with babies on their backs. Every time the car stops, you are immediately surrounded by stretched out hands belonging to a street child, a single mother, or a disabled person dragging themselves towards the car, all in hopes of maybe receiving enough to just eat for one day.
It’s difficult to watch as the crowd around your car gets bigger and bigger. You can’t help but to feel heartless, but after about a minute, the only thing you can do is tell the driver to keep driving, while you are followed by a dozen sad gazes from children whom you weren’t able to give anything to. I say children, but they are children only in age. Their childhoods have been stolen from them, and most became adults long before their due time.
Whether they were forced to leave their homes, lost their parents to HIV/AIDS, or because of some other misfortune, they all have one thing in common—they have seen and experienced hardships beyond what most of us can even imagine..These children have no homes, nothing to eat, nothing to wear and they are in constant danger. To survive they have to beg, steal or become prostitutes. This in turn only isolates them even further, and forces them to live in a state of absolute hopelessness.For most of us it is difficult to imagine what it really means to need. We often desire things and have ambitions for better lives, but they’re not really needs. For millions of Ethiopian children that is not the case. They are in need of most basic items such as a home to sleep in, warm clothes to wear, and a hot meal to fill their bellies. They are in need of assurance that someone loves and cares for them, and that they have hope.
During this season of giving, let us keep in mind those who are less fortunate than us, and do something to change their lives for the better. For many of them, tomorrow will be too late.
~Andrei SkurtuInternational Programs Directorprojects@ChildrensHope.net
DID YOU KNOW?
Every year, more than 80,000 Ethiopian children die from Malaria.
One third of almost 80 million people living in Ethiopia stay alive on less than $1 a day.
Only 31 percent of women 15 and older can read and write.
Safe drinking water is available to only 24 percent of the households.
40 percent of Ethiopian children are severely underweight, 52 percent are stunted, and 11 percent are considered wasted.
There are over 6 million orphans in Ethiopia and approximately half a million street children.
Average life expectancy is less than 45 years, and one in six children die before they turn five years old.
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