Location: Addis Ababa and Chencha
Children Served: 80 in school, 20 at drop-in center, 2 in foster care
Contact: Joe & Karyn Bridges mrjoebridges@gmail.com or nega_meaza@yahoo.com
In 2004 two Americans, Joe Bridges and Mike Granger, traveled to Ethiopia to participate in YWAM (Youth With A Mission) training. The overwhelming number of children living, begging, and eating in the streets of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, shocked and surprised them and they each began to feel God’s call to do something more.
During their time in Ethiopia Joe and Mike developed a friendship with their guide and translator, Nega Meaza, a Christian Ethiopian who had long been concerned for the children of his country but whose limited resources had prevented him from starting a project of his own. One night, near the end of their time together, the three men sat together and each shared their vision for ministry to the street children of Ethiopia. They found that God had given them a shared vision. They say that this was the first meeting of Children’s Hope Ethiopia.
Mike, Joe and Nega remained in contact over the next year and devoted time to prayer, learning and preparation. Mike and Joe had entered this endeavor knowing very little about the circumstances that bring children into the streets and they originally returned to the U.S. believing that the only answer would be to start an orphanage.
The project in Ethiopia began slowly as Nega moved to Addis Ababa to study community development and started visiting children in the street. In the beginning he simply met with children, played with them, brought food to them, and built relationships as they introduced him to family members. Through Nega’s knowledge and experience the three men began to realize that the street children of Addis Ababa had family, they had community, and they had developed resources and skills that required a different kind of intervention, one that would touch many more lives than simply building an orphanage.
Back in the United States, Joe and Mike gathered friends and family and started a small faith-based organization called The Foresaken Children to provide direction and oversight and to raise funds for Children’s Home Ethiopia. They began a sponsorship program connecting churches and individuals in the U.S. with children that Nega was meeting in Ethiopia. It was a simple concept, just $30 per month to support a child’s education or enrollment in the drop-in center and in return The Foresaken Children would keep each sponsor up to date with photos and information about their child. Because the organization was so small very little of the sponsorship money had to be used for administrative costs.These days Children’s Home Ethiopia is a very busy organization. It operates two major programs with plans to expand its services. The first project is the Street Child Drop-in Center located in the center of Addis Ababa near Merkato, the largest market in East Africa. Children living near the Merkato often spend their days begging from tourists and families are very poor. Many of the children beg in the street and return at night to their parent’s plastic shelter. They are at high risk of exploitation and abuse and very few will ever be able to afford school fees. The drop-in center provides a safe place for these children to spend their days. They receive meals, Bible lessons, English lessons, a shower each week, and support from the staff. Each child at the drop-in center program is known by the staff and their families are visited regularly. The goal is to prepare them for school, to connect them with sponsors through The Foresaken Children, and to ensure that each child has a safe place to sleep at night either with their family or with a foster family.
The other major component of Children’s Home Ethiopia is a street child prevention project called The Safe Child Project, which sponsors 80 children by paying their school fees and providing school supplies. These 80 children are subsidized in 14 schools across the city. They are invited to come to the center each Saturday where they receive Bible and Amharic lessons and each family is visited on a regular basis in the home to ensure that the children are taken care of and not at risk of abandonment or abuse.
The other major component of Children’s Home Ethiopia is a street child prevention project called The Safe Child Project, which sponsors 80 children by paying their school fees and providing school supplies. These 80 children are subsidized in 14 schools across the city. They are invited to come to the center each Saturday where they receive Bible and Amharic lessons and each family is visited on a regular basis in the home to ensure that the children are taken care of and not at risk of abandonment or abuse.
Children’s Home Ethiopia carefully monitors the situation of each child in their program. Some children found sleeping on the street were connected back to their families and no longer live on the streets. Others choose to live on the streets rather than live with family and for these children the program provides love, a safe place to play and learn, counseling, food, and support.
Children’s Home Ethiopia hopes to expand their services soon to include a formal foster care program in recognition of the fact that some children no longer have a family connection. They have already informally placed two of the drop-in center children into foster homes and with increased funding plan to create a transitional home to prepare older street children for family life.
The final component of Children’s Home Ethiopia is a street child prevention project called Kota Ganate Agriculture project. When Nega began building relationships with children living on the street he realized that many of the most vulnerable children, without ties to family in Addis Ababa, had come from a rural area in the southern part of Ethiopia, near his own hometown. Many of these children were boys who had come to the city lured by promises of work and income who could no longer remember their family name and had no money to return home when they found themselves living on the streets. The Kota Ganate project will begin this year with the purpose of introducing higher yield agriculture techniques in southern communities in order to improve food security and economic conditions. The goal is to assist these subsistence farmers so that they will have a surplus of crops to sell and therefore less incentive to send their children to the city. The project will also produce some income to help make Children’s Home Ethiopia self-sufficient for the future.
The final component of Children’s Home Ethiopia is a street child prevention project called Kota Ganate Agriculture project. When Nega began building relationships with children living on the street he realized that many of the most vulnerable children, without ties to family in Addis Ababa, had come from a rural area in the southern part of Ethiopia, near his own hometown. Many of these children were boys who had come to the city lured by promises of work and income who could no longer remember their family name and had no money to return home when they found themselves living on the streets. The Kota Ganate project will begin this year with the purpose of introducing higher yield agriculture techniques in southern communities in order to improve food security and economic conditions. The goal is to assist these subsistence farmers so that they will have a surplus of crops to sell and therefore less incentive to send their children to the city. The project will also produce some income to help make Children’s Home Ethiopia self-sufficient for the future.
Lessons learned by The Foresaken Children and Children's Home Ethiopia
1. You can’t provide everything all at once for children. Building relationships, learning their stories, and creating trust is essential for sustainability.
2. You may be tempted to invite children to sleep at a drop-in center but this is not the purpose of a drop-in center and can very easily overwhelm staff and cause jealousy and resentment.
3. Be patient with a new ministry. Accept that you will make some mistakes.
4. Resist the urge to “save them all.” Do what you can do and don’t take on more too quickly.
4. Resist the urge to “save them all.” Do what you can do and don’t take on more too quickly.
My Thoughts:
We visited the drop-in center several times during my stay in Addis and I came to know Nega and the children there quite well. Many of us were touched by their stories of loss as well as the hope they have found through Children's Home Ethiopia. This is a model of community-based care that uses very few resources to care for a lot of children and families. I was especially touched by the stories of Ephraim and Mitu - two children, almost teenagers, without connection to family in Addis Ababa. These were children at very high risk for child labor and abuse. If not living on the streets their alternatives were limited. They are now in loving foster homes through the drop-in center. I will post Mitu's story here soon.
The children’s project was initiated two years ago in response to the overwhelming need for educational support in the area. School-aged children and their families in this community were unable to pay the $10/month in school fees or buy uniforms for the Addis public school system. A few literate volunteers began meeting with eager children and created an informal school. With help from the local government and volunteers the community built a small school house (see photo) from metal sheds and donated concrete and equipment. The teachers are all local volunteers who receive some in-kind support from the community.
