Riding with Gemechis Jeleta of Winrock International
and driver, Kassahun, on a busy four-lane, divided road through the streets of
Addis Ababa to meet my host Guta Abdi of the Education For Development
Association, I see a startling sight: donkeys in the air! Yes, a herd of
donkeys crossing overhead in a pedestrian crosswalk. I tell Guta about the sight;
he laughs, and gives me today’s picture of five people and a donkey sharing a
very small dug-out canoe. When a western Ethiopian river was impounded, forming
Fincha Lake for hydroelectric power, area farmers lost land and were presented
with a transportation problem. The EFDA taught craftsmen to build canoes at
Chitu Island to cross the lake. As their boat-building skills improved, the
size of their boats increased. With larger boats, the EFDA trained the farmers to fish
for tilapia in this western highlands reservoir. The fishermen now face a
lifetime of food security. In the next few days, I see first-hand the breadth
of EFDA’s work. The boat building and fishing training are just two of EFDA’s
job skills training projects designed to upgrade existing skills and introduce
new skills. Among those trained are leather workers, blacksmiths, basket
weavers, and clay workers who produce “jabena” coffee pots, clay water jugs,
and fuel saving stoves. EFDA’s rural livelihood programs work to provide jobs
for women. I meet women trained to build low-fuel cook stoves, distribute sacks
of cane sugar and dig bicarbonate of soda from volcanic soil for the
manufacture of medicine.
Guta states that development should first take place
in the minds of the people. The EFDA, which operates in the Oromia and Benish
Gumuz regional states, builds schools to increase the quality of life through
quality education. Schools encourage children to learn traditional knowledge of
their community. EFDA’s health projects include women’s reproductive health,
HIV/AIDS programs, and a campaign that abolished female genital mutilation in
the Jimma and Horro districts. Oh, I have much more to see.
--Richard
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