» Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Cattle breeding programme
Since 2008 WER has funded 2 kindergartens in the remote village of Basketo, Southern Ethiopia with 152 pupils between them.
WER funding has provided salaries, upkeep and equipment. As with all WER projects, it is the aim that the kindergartens should be self-sufficient. A cattle breeding project has now been implemented to support this aim.
Primary School Education
The Arba Minch Primary School was established in response to parents’ requests that better quality education be made available to their young children.
The majority of children attending the school have come from three local Montessori kindergartens. Initially eight classrooms were built to cater for 320 children, from grades 1 to 4.
Kindergarten School Education
WER, in partnership with the Kale Heywet Church, has provided funding to build two Montessori Kindergarten Schools in Basketo, a remote highland community over 600 km from the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa.
140 children are now benefiting from an education at the schools. The method of teaching is participatory - children learn as they play. The teaching staff have been sourced from the local community and some of the teachers have received two years training in the 'Montessori' approach to learning.
Ethiopia
Total population (millions): 88.0
Life expectancy at birth (years): 55.8
Adult literacy rate (% age 15 and above): 42.7
GDP per capita (PPP US$): 900
Combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (%): 49.0
Apart from a five-year Italian occupation, Ethiopia has never been colonised, making it Africa’s oldest independent country. Nonetheless, Ethiopia is currently one of Africa’s poorest countries. It has been widely publicised in the media for problems regarding famine as a result of years of bad harvests, and even today a large proportion of Ethiopians depend on food aid from abroad. In 2009, the Ethiopian government claimed that as many as 6 million were still in need of food aid.
The situation in Ethiopia has been exacerbated by years of civil conflict and a border dispute with Eritrea escalated into a full-scale war between the two countries in 1999.
The Ethiopian economy revolves around agriculture, with coffee as a key export, but most families struggle to produce enough food due to the lack of rainfall. Despite recent economic growth, the lack of access to services such as healthcare, education, water and sanitation is a daily challenge for people in Ethiopia. HIV/AIDS is also widespread with nearly one million Ethiopians suffering from the virus, posing a very real threat to social development in the country.
Despite the difficulties faced by Ethiopian people, Ethiopia has some of the best middle and long-distance runners in the world, serving as the homeland for runners who have set over 20 world records in the World and Olympic Championships in addition to the winner of the 2010 London Marathon. Ethiopia boasts an incredibly beautiful landscape and visitors to the country rarely fail to be charmed by the warm and welcoming nature of the local people.
The most recent Human Development Report ranks Ethiopia at 171 out of 182 countries, with a low human development rating status. The Human Development Index (HDI) value is 0.414 compared to the HDI of the UK, which is 0.946.