Late Activities' Reoprt from Save Our Souls in Ethiopia
Dear friends,
With our truly felt soothing summer wishes, we have come to you through this letter to post you on the latest happenings in our facility; and as always it gives us another opportunity to forward our gratitude.
Every progress and step we take has always been backed by you who from all the people deserve the credit of our success. Here we have come again to share our stay during the past six months.
A Home for Many Children
It is with pleasure that we wish to tell you that the village has once again become a home for many children. We have admitted nine children and nearly filled the vacant place. Our new children have got along with the new environment and seem well adjusted and happy with their new life. They have also started in the kindergarten and primary classes.
Life has also been more lively and relaxing for other children in the village. They have been to different get-togethers, events and annual celebrations including Ethiopian Easter and other celebrations. Besides, they were engaged in various social clubs (football, circus, scout and music clubs) during their free time. Most of the clubs have increased the number of their members.
Academically, the village has also a busy time providing special tutorial classes for the children with poor academic achievements as well as awarding those children with outstanding performance.
Among the celebrations we have had, the SOS Mother’s Day was also a glamorous occasion with a special tribute this year. SOS Mothers couldn’t be more happy and proud to have been international awarded in the category of “SOCIAL COMMITTEMENT” from the International Prize Organization of Lauriat Michael Gorvachoev. It was a great delight to all of us and we had an eventful moment for them with games, poems and songs presented by the children in a very festive mood. Mothers were touched and moved seeing the entire SOS family share their joy and fruit of true commitment.
Together with the academics and co-curricular activities, the village had conducted various corresponding workshops and training for the children, mothers and aunts. All SOS mothers and aunts in the village have taken the workshop given on ‘building self-confidence on children’. Our children have also attended different workshops that would help them live happily and prudently.
Children with Special Needs
We have also continued to provide special education and training for our children at the “Special Needs Education Center”. Including plastic bag making, the children were given especial training on greeting cards making. They have also been doing in the silk and silkworm production and sold more kilograms of silk. The center has also made available different embroideries and handcrafts for sale on different events and celebrations.
Village Farm
The farm has also been contributing a lot providing different agricultural products mainly for our children. The farm has made available milk, fresh carrot, cabbage, salad as well as different vegetables both for the village community and for the local people. We have also bought nine oxen and started fattening them.
SOS Social Center
In addition to providing the usual medical care, our clinic was giving Health Education and Family Planning lessons to our children, staffs and to the community. It even expanded its service to offer HIV – Voluntary Counselling and Testing VCT. Though the center is just half year old, we have growing rate of people who are willing to have an HIV test at our center. In connection with our VCT Center, we are also planning to launch a Family Strengthening Program. When this program becomes operational within one-month time, it mainly attempts to address the problem of poor HIV positive families and restore their economic crises by engaging them in Income Generating Activities.
Day Care Center
The children at the center have shown greater physical and mental development. They can now run, jump and learn like any other kids in their age. After caring out the renovation work of additional two classless, we have now a plan to admit fifty children from extremely poor families of the local community. It was also during this past half-year that we have bought and installed different out door game materials such as swinging, balance and merry-go-round.
SOS Herman Gmeiner Schools
Our school has stayed busy preparing the students for the National Exams. We have set more than 216 students for National Examination set at grade 8, 10 and Entrance Exam for Higher Institutes. Although the results will be disclosed later in the year, we are so confident that almost all of our students will perform successfully. The school has also launched different social as well as educational clubs. The strengthening of the previous social clubs has also been done and students were enjoying every Wednesday afternoon taking part in their Social or Educational Club: Charity, Information Technology, Anti-drug, Home Economics and Agriculture. The school has also continued the Community Extended program and provided educational and uniform support for 393 needy children in the nearby community yet for this academic year.
IGCSE Program
We are also proud to inform you about the establishment of our new program called – International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) at our Secondary School. We have admitted 20 students from all over SOS Children’s Villages in Ethiopia just to start with. All these children have taken an international standard entrance exam and proven their competence before they joined the program. They are now getting along with the new curriculum and attending classes effectively. Among these twenty students, eight of them belong to our village.
Rain and Pain
All in all we can only say that we have stayed well and the country has remained in better condition. We amazingly had rain a little earlier this year which has helped in some areas for the harvest. It is estimated that our summer will remain rainy although too much of it throughout would also ruin the crops and lead us to a terrible condition. We believe your prayers will be with us as your support has been.
Thank you again for all your deeds, though unplayable they have always been appreciated. We wish you a luminous summer and hope to be back to you with better news and progress.
Sincerely yours
Abel Kassahun
Village Director
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