e second person I want to mention is the director of one of the
orphanages we visited today. Zewditu Yashu founded the GIODFSA (Gelgela
Integrated Orphans and Destitute Family Support Association) orphanage
in 2004. The mother of twelve children, Zewditu and her husband owned a
hotel in southern Ethiopia. Along the way, two of her children, and then
her husband passed away. Zewditu was a single mother of ten children
while running the hotel.
One of her daughters had a child out of wedlock. This was a huge
embarrassment to the family. Her daughter then had a second child out of
wedlock. Because of the family's prominence in their village and the
embarrassment to the family, Zewditu traveled with her daughter to Addis
Ababa to give the youngest up for adoption. They went to a French agency
(S.O.S.). While working with the agency, Zewditu was inspired by the
agency's work and asked what she could do to help. They asked her to
bring them children from around the country who didn't have families.
Over the course of the year, she brought them 170 children.
Unfortunately, S.O.S. would not take children over the age of five. Ten
of the children she brought them were too old to be taken by S.O.S. So,
she took the children herself. She decided that this work was much more
important than running a hotel, so sold it and used the money along with
money she had in the bank to start an orphanage. She has now grown the
orphanage so their are four locations around the country. While some
orphanages are particular about the children they will take in, GIODFSA
will take any child brought to them. For example, many orphanages will
not accept children that are HIV+. GIODFSA does.
Zewditu has worked with the Ethiopian government to receive support, and
has received a donation of two acres from them on the outskirts of town
(they are paying the U.S. equivalent of $3000/month for the house they
are renting). She wants to be able to accept more children and give them
more room to play. She is trying to raise money for construction of the
house.
The children of two of the families traveling with us came from GIODFSA.
One of the fathers told Zewditu what an inspiration she is to us, and
spoke very passionately about making sure his son knew her story and
what her story means to us. It was very emotional. I don't think any of
us had a dry eye.
So concludes our visit to Ethiopia. There are good people here, trying
to do all they can to make this a better country for its people. I've
only been here a week, and happened to learn these two individual's
stories. I can't imagine the countless others also working to improve
the living conditions here. I feel that because of what we've done to
bring Fitsum home with us, we are forever linked to this great country
and will do what we can to help those who are here.
Tom