Kidane Mehret Children's Home, Ethiopia

With money raised this year we hope to be able to provide for the older children now in Sr Lutgarda's care.

Ethiopia a wonderful country and home to many of the world's greatest athletes. But sadly it is also one of the poorest countries in Africa. Addis Ababa it's capital attracts many people from the rural regions in search of employment. As a result of this there is a huge number of people in living in extreme poverty in the city and there are many abandoned children and orphans whose parent's may have died of AIDS or other poverty related illnesses.

The Kidane Mehret children's home is a long established entity in Addis Ababa originally founded in 1933. It is now run by Maltese Franciscan Sisters headed up by Sister Lutgarda. They have around 160 orphaned or abandoned children ranging from small infants to 16 year olds and of varying degrees of health and ability. They provide the children with a very caring, safe home, with medical care and a strong educational environment. A number of their children have gone on to university education with the support of the sisters and other staff. They also assist children in finding new families in many countries around the world including Ireland. There are a large number of adopted Ethiopian children now living in Ireland who were originally from Kidhane Mehret.

One of these Irish/Ethiopian families is our own Kevin and Mairead Gill who adopted Joseph Serawit in February 2007 and Ruhama Mary in April this year. They write....

"On our first visit to Ethiopia spent one month in Addis Ababa visiting Joseph Serawit at Kidhane Mehret every day while all of our legal documents were being processed. We were very impressed with the work of the staff of the Kidane Mehret Childrens’ Home. The home provides a very, safe and caring environment for the children and they are doing tremendous work in the wider community in Addis through health care and education.

When we visited again in 2009 we discovered that they had a new project called ‘Beyond the Orphanage’ that helps children who are orphaned and live outside of the home (due to the limited capacity) which was supported by MovieExtras.ie fundraising last Christmas. The project has now become an independent charity and is doing great work with the street children of Addis Ababa.

This year Sr Lutgarda has asked that we support the many older children in her care, those who are very ill and children due to lack of paperwork cannot be adopted.  If we can raise €5,000 for Kidane this year we will be able to fully provide for 14 teenagers living within the children's home, hopefully it will be more.

 We again this year found Ethiopia a  wonderful place to visit.  It’s a remarkable country, even though very poor it's got a very rich and historically significant culture with beautiful, friendly and generous people."

For further information on the Children’s Home, see http://fcj-kmch.org/index.html