Whatever You Are Be A Good One: Putting a Face to a Number

The other morning while driving in a taxi, I noticed a young boy in the process of waking up. He had been using the cement as his pillow and was crawling out of his plastic flour sack, which he used as his make-shift sleeping bag for the night. There is no way he could have been over the age of 8...

Over 800 children are living on the streets here in Gondar. Many of these children don’t attend school, hustle the streets and beg for their food. It’s a pretty astounding statistic when you really think about 800 children on the streets, eating, begging, stealing, and living out their childhood while sleeping in plastic flour sacks. What was I doing when I was 8...what were you doing when you were 8?

As I have blogged about before, I have spent some time working with Yenege Tesfa:Hope for Tomorrow which is a local NGO for street kids and orphans. Yenege Tesfa used some of their donated money and provided T-Shirts to give to the street children. They decided on t-shirts for the street kids because 1. The kids need clothes and 2. It’s great advertising (especially during Timkat, the biggest holidy of the year which is this weekend) I was able to be a part of handing the shirts out, and it was heart-breaking in some ways, but also eye-opening to actually see some of the faces that comprise that number of 800. We handed out around 60 t-shirts today, and have more to give tomorrow. One little boy I met was only 7 years old, his name was Goshu…

Yenege Tesfa has been an incredible NGO here in Gondar for about 10 years. They do numerous things for the communities children, but one of their biggest projects is giving housing to many of the kids they find orphaned on the streets. Yenege Tesfa currently has 3 shelters open. (I believe around 50 children live in the shelters) All of their shelters are at complete capacity right now and the need to expand is definitely evident. They are planning to build a 4^th shelter, but are in the process of fundraising....

Alright, this is the part I ask you for money, right? No, not at this point (maybe later though!) I don’t want to make you give, or tell you to give, or even guilt you into giving, but just check out their website. Look at what they are doing here in Gondar and know that even small contributions make a big difference. If you feel moved to give, amazing and if not, it is important to be well informed about places, people and organizations like this. It has been such a blessing to volunteer for this organization in my free time here in Gondar and I can tell you first hand, if you choose to give, the money is being well used.

Here are a few pictures of today and the boys wearing their T-shirts. They were all smiles :)