By: Nasir Al-AminDuring the first two days of our trip to Ethiopia, we made a number of visits to public/government schools in the Capital city, Addis Ababa. These schools are the schools that orphans and the impoverished children of Ethiopia attend.
We started each school visit with an information session with the Principle and staff of each school. The three major concerns were generally the same:
(1) Food: The children are unable to concentrate in school, because they are hungry and lack proper nutrition. Students that are on medication for HIV/AIDS or other mental health issues need to take their medications with food in order for the medications to work effectively, yet they are to poor to afford the proper food to take with their medications. *NEED: SCHOOL FEEDING PROGRAM
(2) Restroom Facility: The school averaged around 1,000 students and had one restroom facility. These restroom facilities were both male and female and divided by a wall and no doors. One restroom in particular, the students had to defecate or urinate at the door of the stall, as the whole for the toilet is full with feces. And due to a lack of funds, the school was unable to pay for the pipes to be cleaned, and thus the feces has hardened in the pipes and it cannot be removed—forcing the students to use the rest room at the entrance of the stall. *NEED: A NEW RESTROOM FACILITY
(3) School Supplies (Computers and Science Supplies): Each school averaged around 1,000 students and the school with the most computers had 3. Additionally, their science classes lacked supplies to facilitate experiments. For instance, their was one microscope for an entire school. *NEED: SCHOOL EQUIPMENT & SUPPPLIES.
We know what they need (and now you do too), the question is what will we do?Painted on one of the walls of the school was the phrase: “We Need Change.”
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