Ethiopia

Health Support Foundation

              “Recycling for life”

 

NEWSLETTER Vol. 1, No. 4, October/November 2005

 

Mark your calendars!!!

Friday, November 18^th, 6:00 p.m. for our first fund raising dinner at the Addis Ababa Restaurant, 1809 West 39^th Street, K.C. Missouri.

Cost: $30 per person for an authentic Ethiopian dinner. Proceeds go to covering costs for the next sea container shipment of medical equipment and supplies.  RSVP by calling (816) 373-6422 before November 16th.

The Ethiopian

Eighty percent are subsistence farmers.  Half live on less than $2 per day and many on less than $1 per day.  Most farms are small and almost all the work is done by hand.  Malaria, HIV/AIDS and other diseases are rampant. Sickness is a way of life.  Life expectancy is less than thirty years. 

Out of 74 million, approximately 5 million have found their way to the capital city, Addis Ababa, where many struggle to make a living.  Some are doing quite well, but all too many have been reduced to begging in order to survive. 

Observing the mass of used cars clogging the busy streets in Addis, someone called it Europe’s junk yard. Public transportation consists of a relatively small number of ancient busses and hundreds of blue Volkswagen vans, mostly old, which are assigned to specific routes throughout the city.  Vehicular traffic shares the mostly rough and potholed roads with beggars, goats and donkeys. 

Yet, wherever you look, people seem to make do.  Yet there is little crime and I never saw a drunk person in public as is so often the case in Russia or cities in the Western world.  The people are handsome and very friendly. 

While Amharic is their primary language, English, particularly in business affairs, is widely used.  Most school children in the higher grades speak fairly good English. The public schools are terribly overcrowded with classes averaging around 85 pupils each. Books and school supplies, particularly in the rural areas, are in very short supply.  There is no school lunch program and no bussing program.  In much of the country girls go to school to only around the 3^rd grade and are then home schooled; which, in reality, means no schooling. 

There are only about 2,800 doctors serving a population or 74 million.  That works out to one doctor to each 35,000 people.  Most of the doctors live and work in Addis Ababa.

Churches and mosques are abundant and well attended.  Ethiopia is a Christian nation and is very proud of its Christian heritage.  But almost 40% of the population is Muslim and the nation is surrounded by Muslim nations. 

The Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Church is the predominant church.  Many years ago their Bishops were ordained in Alexandria, Egypt, but for more than a century they have been ordained in Ethiopia, thus the term “Coptic” is no longer accurate or appropriate when speaking about their Christian faith. 

Ethiopians are justifiably proud of their religious tolerance and the fact that for centuries, with a few minor exceptions, Christians and Muslims have lived together in peace.  However, in the present environment of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the situation in Israel tensions are on the rise.  Wars along their own borders have created refugees in the hundreds of thousand.

Saudi Arabia has recently been very aggressive in pushing the Muslim faith in Ethiopia.  In time this may prove to be counterproductive.  Many resent this,  not so much on religious grounds but resentment that it is being directed from a foreign country.

Update on Saint Yared Clinic

It was a distinct pleasure to visit and see the construction activity in the entire first floor of a new modern high rise building in central Addis Ababa on what will soon be the “Saint Yared Clinic.”   Construction had been delayed for lack of funds and the Foundation recently sent $5,000 to help complete the work.  When the clinic opens its doors in early 2006 it will be the finest medical clinic in Ethiopia.  The Clinic is located about 10 blocks from the City Hall.  While the equipment we shipped will provide most of what is needed, there are still many items which must be purchased on the local market.

In the latter part of November a representative from the Albert Einstein Hospital in New York City will be visiting our Clinic.  We have high hopes that they will designate it as their field unit for research and study of infectious diseases.  Dr. Akeze Teame, an EHSF Advisor, will be in Addis at the time to conduct the tour.  The Clinic will have its primary focus on infections diseases, chief among which are HIV/AIDS and malaria and Dr. Teame will serve as the Clinic’s medical director.

Publicity in Ethiopia

Nancy Shields, Secretary to the EHSF Board, arrived in Addis Ababa from Kansas City a few days before me and plans a stay of four months.  Through the good offices of Sisay Shimelis, another EHSF Advisor, we were able to visit the Ethiopian chief protocol officer, the head of the Ethiopian expatriate office, and a full 40 minutes with His Excellency Girma Woldegiogis, President of Ethiopia in the reception room at the Royal Palace.  In each case we briefed them about the EHSF projects.  The meeting with the President resulted in newspaper and TV coverage over the entire nation! 

We also spent an evening, arranged by Sisay, with His Excellency Yaragal Aysheshim, President of the Beshengul Gumze (Gojam) region.  This is the region where Sisay, in association with a British firm, is launching the first 4,000 hectare plantation to provide raw material for a huge biodiesel project.  During our visit Sisay also signed a contract, in association with a Swiss pharmaceutical firm, for a 2,000 hectare plantation project to plant and harvest a plant to provide raw material for a medicine to treat and prevent malaria.

YOU are needed!

If you are reading this newsletter, you are  among those precious people who recognize the simple, but very profound, fact that humans are pretty much alike and we need each other - sometimes desperately so.  You are also probably one who has supported the Foundation with your prayers, finances, talents or time.  There will be opportunities to continue on that blessed path in the days to come. 

We hope to see you at one or more of our fund raising and information-sharing dinners.  Chet Adkins will soon be asking you for a few hours of work at the Independence Regional Health Center to help prepare more equipment for shipment to Addis Ababa.  “Many hands make light work.” 

A recent informational meeting of health related workers at Jim’s home raised several hundred dollars.  A surgeon who is about to retire desires to donate all his surgical equipment; about $30,000 worth!  A person who saw an article about EHSF donated a brand new nebulizer.

We’re not alone.  One hour before leaving Addis Ababa I was visited by a couple who have a 9 month old baby boy who, incidentally, was born in Denver and has American citizenship.  The husband holds a high position, but she has only a high school education. Through Sisay she was acquainted with our clinic and future hospital.  She said, “I need more education in order to help my people.  I want to become a nurse.  Can you help me?”  I said that nurse’s training took anywhere from 2 to 4 years,   “What about the baby?”  She said, “We can handle it.”  I’m sending her information about the nursing programs at Penn Valley and Graceland School of Nursing.  It is this type of devotion and dedication from Ethiopians which make me, and I hope each of you, stay the course.                 

While poverty is endemic in Ethiopia, so are signs of improvement.  Modern buildings, homes and infrastructure improvements are evident everywhere.  Ethiopian Airlines just paid US$1.6 Billion for Boeing’s first 10 new model airliners!  We can make a difference!