A New Year!
October 20, 2021
September saw the BLoved family celebrating Ethiopian New Year, doing good in the community, and getting all the kids ready to return to school!
ETHIOPIAN NEW YEAR
BLoved and Kidimia staff members, along with volunteers from the Love and Care Center, visited the children to celebrate Ethiopian New Year on September 11th. Everyone dressed for the occasion and enjoyed worshipping, praying, and eating together. What a happy day!
SHARING GOD’S WORD
The Addis children spent time sharing God’s word with 94 young prisoners at the juvenile detention center. These youths, ranging in age from 9 to 18, come from all over the country. The visit was conducted in collaboration with Love and Care, and was a beautiful opportunity for our kids to talk with others about God in the form of storytelling. They also had a chance to serve the prisoners lunch, eat with them, and enjoy games together.
BACK TO SCHOOL CLOTHES
All BLoved kids are expected to practice planning/budgeting, decision making, and managing financial resources when it comes to getting clothes for school. They are given a budget, list their needs, prioritize them, and then are taken by staff to make their purchases. BLoved gave this support to all its children this month. Addis kids bought their clothes by themselves and Sodo kids with the help of social workers. The support includes: trousers, jackets, shirts, t-shirts, socks, and more. All the kids are excited about their new clothing purchases!
BLOVED BOARD MEMBER MEETING
The BLoved Board held their semi-annual meeting in September in Debrezeit. All board members but one were in attendance, and the focus was on evaluating the progress the organization has made in the past six months. One big victory was the launch of the BLoved Database, a central location that is easy to search and reference and has the personal information, health information, school data, psychosocial information, and future goals for each BLoved child.
Additionally, board members enjoyed a training from Chairperson Dr. Aschalew Abebe on team leadership. All members were motivated and left committed to do the most in their role in the spirit of ownership and stewardship.
GOOD IN THE COMMUNITY
Months ago, BLoved Sodo Project mobilized the community to donate books to the Holistic Development Center Library. As a result of this push, Netsanet Eshete, a community member working at Sodo Christian Hospital, donated 42 books that were requested by our kids and will benefit them and the entire community.
Since Ethiopia is struggling against COVID-19, BLoved Ethiopia provided in-kind donations of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for three hospitals in the country: Zewuditu Memorial Hospital (Addis Ababa), Otonal Teaching & Referral Hospital (Wolayita Sodo), and another hospital found in the northern part of the country. Zewditu Memorial Hospital acknowledged our contribution in an event to thank all their partners and donors.
