throwing a lifeline to Ethiopia's most vulnerable
This friday Stephen and Lisa will be in Warwick to give an illustrated talk on how their conservation work in Ethiopia led to the founding of the humanitarian charity, Desta Ethiopia. The event is being kindly hosted by Fr. Patrick and the Catholic parish of St. Mary Immaculate, and entrance is free (for further details please see below).
If you are in the area why not come along? We’d love to see you!
Today Ethiopia celebrates TIMKET, one of the country’s most important religious festivals, marking the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist in the River Jordan. To all those celebrating right now we wish you a wonderful feast!
A call-out to all our Maltese friends and supporters: Stephen and Lisa will be giving an illustrated presentation at 6 pm on Friday 23rd January on the subject of Ethiopian wall paintings and the work of Desta Ethiopia. The event is kindly hosted by Din l-Art Ħelwa at their premises at 133 Melita Street, Valletta, free of charge and open to everyone.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
Ethiopian Orthodox Christmas (Lidet, or Genna) is celebrated on 7th January, so this Christmas greeting is early for some of our colleagues, supporters and contributors across the world, while others do not celebrate Christmas at all. Nevertheless, all of us know the joy of welcoming in new life, and all of us have the capacity to feel tenderness and compassion towards those who need our protection and help, especially when they are at their most vulnerable. In that spirit we wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a happy and hopeful New Year!
Back in April we posted our first blog – “Picking up the pieces” – describing our first steps in helping to rebuild capacity at Howzien’s primary hospital. You may remember that the hospital was trashed and looted during the war (scroll down here if you want a reminder). We began liaising with the hospital committee in 2024 to work out how we could help most effectively with the resources available, and settled first on provision of a much-needed chemical analyser. Next we provided seven computers. This month Desta contributed a further twenty computers. These are vital for a wide range of applications including digital patient record-keeping, care management, health monitoring and diagnostics. We are proud to announce that Desta’s partnership with the hospital was showcased on the region’s TV news channels this Thursday….
…and we have ambitions to do more!
Maternity and neonatal care is greatly in need of improvement, and rehabilitation of the hospital’s operating theatre is also an urgent requirement. We have already come a long way, and we are confident that with tenacity, hope, and your continuing help, we can realise our goals.
A big THANK YOU, as ever, to all our supporters, and a call out to everyone else: PLEASE JOIN US!
The Ethiopian New Year – Enkutatash – has just begun (on 11th September) ushering in new hope, and a new academic year. The great news is that primary education is free. The downside is that pens, exercise books and other essential school materials are not. This is a prohibitive expense for many, and for around a third of primary school age Ethiopian children education is just a dream.
Over 100,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) reside in camps in Adigrat near the Eritrean border, having fled the fierce fighting in Western Tigray during the war. Although hostilities officially ceased in November 2022, large swathes of territory along the border between Tigray and Amhara remain contested or under occupation, making a return home impossible. Many left their homes with nothing, many lost family members to the conflict. Living conditions in the camps are bad and deteriorating, life is precarious, and the future is uncertain. This is where education comes in.
Since 2023 we have been working together with the Catholic Diocese of Adigrat to provide school materials for IDPs in their care. We currently provide basic supplies to allow 380 of the most vulnerable children in the camps to go to school, giving them a chance to progress towards a better life.
We are a very small charity but in the right situation, and with the right partners, a little goes a long way. This simple, cost-effective intervention – made possible by you, our Desta supporters – is a game-changer for the future of these vulnerable children.
So, we are sending out a big THANK YOU to all of you for your contributions, whether these are one-off or regular monthly donations, anonymous gifts through JustGiving, or merchandise purchases at events. We are enormously grateful not only for your financial support, but for your love and compassion. Please keep it coming!
This is Daisy, one of the small but growing herd of dairy cows which now provides a regular supply of milk to around 200 orphaned and internally displaced street kids of Tigray’s capital, Mekelle.
Some of you will have already heard of our wonderful local partner organisation Keradion, which runs the orphan feeding programme from small premises in the city. Desta Ethiopia is proud to have enabled this self-sustaining initiative through generous funding from the Gerda Henkel Foundation.
This is Mhretab Desbele, Keradion’s accountant, with one of the new calves. Mhretab works for a local brewery by day and volunteers for Keradion in his spare time.
Desta Ethiopia and Keradion are working together to provide at least one basic meal a day for each street child. This liberates them from spiralling downward in a life of begging and petty crime, and gives them a future by enabling them to go to school.
Keeping the dairy going is a long-term committment. Costs include provision of cattle-housing, fodder and grazing, milking, transport and veterinary care. Please help us in any way you can to keep the dairy up and running, and strengthening young bones!
more news soon…..
Its been a while since we were in touch with all our Desta friends and donors and a lot has happened in the meantime – we have just been too busy with it all to have been able to keep in touch! One of Desta Ethiopia’s latest projects has been helping to re-equip the Fresemaetat Primary Hospital in Howzien, Tigray.
The hospital, which serves a rural population of 120,000 over an area of 1,900 km, had been one of the best-equipped hospitals in the region before the outbreak of war in November 2000. Over the next two years it was systematically looted and vandalised by Eritrean forces, and even used as a military base over an eight month period. When we visited in September 2023 – just ten months after cessation of hostilities – the state of the hospital was utterly dispiriting. Windows were smashed, the interior of the hospital soiled, two huge storage units at the back of the hospital were crammed with smashed and useless equipment, and all the patient records had been destroyed.
With the gifts of our supporters, Desta Ethiopia has made a small but significant contribution to the restoration of the hospital’s services. We have supplied seven computers for the medical records unit, and a semi-automated chemical analyser which is already proving invaluable. The analyser enables clinical testing of biological samples (blood, urine etc.) to diagnose diseases, and monitor patient health and treatment effectiveness, particularly in the areas of neonatal care, chronic diabetes, hypertension and renal problems.
The provision of this vital equipment has been made possible by one-off donations, regular subscriptions, and small fund-raising events. Small contributions may seem insignificant but many small contributions add up and can really change – and save – lives. We intend to keep helping to build capacity at the hospital as long as your generosity makes it possible. We will keep you posted!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!
Desta Ethiopia 