The idea for the project children’s home
When we, the Doctors for Ethiopia e. V., visited Yirgalem in 2019, we were confronted with the fact that six newborn children had been abandoned in the hospital by their mothers for unknown reasons. After we inquired, we learned that approximately 15 to 18 children are left behind each year. Because the hospital does not have the resources to care for these children, it attempted to persuade the families in conversations to readopt their children. It worked out for some families, but for others, the situation was so difficult that the children had to be given to a small children’s home. We noticed when we visited this children’s home that, while it was nice and clean, and the caregivers treated the children with love (see photos), it did not have the capacity to take in more children.
This is how the project to build a children's home for abandoned children came to be
There are no numbers needed to demonstrate the deplorable conditions in which many children around the world, including in Ethiopia, are forced to live for various reasons. Drought, a weak economy as a result of Corona, for example, and wars, as well as social, cultural, and psychological pressures, have resulted in the abandonment of thousands of children who are destitute, unwanted, and without a family.
Lacking access to education and health care, traooed in a vicious sycle of pverty, their basic rights, as well as their lives, are in danger. As a disadvantaged group in society, these children are subjected to neglect, malnutrition, and illiteracy. Public aid hardly reaches them. For this reason, they deserve your and our attention and all the grants we can make enable. That is why we want to become home for abandoned children.
"Children are our future."
First and foremost, we aim to care for children who are abandoned at Yirgalem General Hospital after birth. But we also want to make the world a little better for other children who have been living on the streets without care. This project aims to improve the learning and teaching conditions of the children in Yirgalem. The children will be taught and educated according to the state curriculum and the values of the Christian Community of Phillipisios Church.
The children left alone will be given a home, hope and a future.
Donate now for the children’s home.
Implementation children's home on 2 hectares of land
- Residential houses for abandoned children with caregivers and attendants
- Kindergarten/ school with auditorium/ gymnasium
- Library
- Village square
- Playground
- 1 building for staff
- 1 building for laundry
- Seminar room for trainings, seminars, as gymnasium and for working groups
- 1 administration office for the parish Phillipisios Church with toilet and
meeting room and two-room apartment for the director/caretaker of the children’s home - Guest house for volunteers
- Community bus for shopping
Land for growing vegetables for self-sufficiency and sale/ Food Forest - Small animal husbandry: chickens, bees, possibly sheep
Implementation guest house on 1 hectare plot
- Guest house/ Hotel
- Restaurant
- Cafe
- Bar
- Small Park
Cooperation Work
The children’s home is being built in collaboration with our local partner, the Phillipisios Church in Addis Ababa, as well as the Yirgalem General Hospital in terms of health care.
Our goal is to share knowledge and experience in collaboration with Mutabor Human and Development GmbH, a non-profit youth welfare organization, and its managing partner, Mr. Sellge.
We have been able to win the collaboration of Dipl.-Ing. Architect Prof. Thorsten Burgmer and Dipl.-Ing. Architect Jan Jakob Glasmeier from the Institute for Energy Efficient Architecture of the Technical University of Cologne, as well as Ethiopian architect Fasika Gezahegne, who also teaches at the University of Addis Ababa.
The buildings (children’s home, school, guest house) intend to be constructed with sustainable and locally available materials. In the summer term, various students from Germany and Ethiopia will take part in working out the details of the concept. Three students from Cologne currently work on planning and drafts in the context of their Master’s thesis.
Our partners
Architect Dipl.-Ing. Jan Glasmeier founded “simple architecture” in Bangkok in 2016. He worked for Foster + Partners in London and on the Madar City Masterplan in Abu Dhabi. He received a diploma in architecture from the Technical University of Darmstadt in Germany.
Jan’s focus is on vernacular and social architecture incorporating natural and locally available materials.
Dipl.-Ing. Architect Prof. Thorsten Burgmer devotes his teaching time to design and energy concepts. He is a partner in the architectural firm Grosche Burgmer Architekten with a focus on timber construction and sustainable building.
Klaus Peter Stamm and David Quandt, our craftsmen, support us with training and repair work, as they did at Yirgalem General Hospital.
Sidama region and Yirgalem city, promotion of cooperation in the field of cross-border exchange of knowledge and experience, support in obtaining the land, in bureaucratic issues and in overcoming hurdles.