Kendahaw has the type of smile that is truly genuine. He poses for photos, but he never forces a smiles. It just comes naturally. Perhaps for a good reason, because life has changed dramatically for the 12-year-old in the past year.Nine months ago, Kendahaw spent his days tending to the family cattle. He had never
Sitina Mohammed is a 15-year-old girl who goes to Dumey School in Ethiopia's Meda Welabu district, where imagine1day has just inaugurated a new school.Sitina comes from a big family and is the the oldest, with three brothers and two sisters.Not many people in Sitina’s community believed that a girl should be sent to school. “I was looking after my
There’s a construction boom happening in rural Ethiopia.Empowered through leadership development and inspired by the education transformation we support, communities are taking school construction into their own hands.They’ve built 437 classrooms and refurbished another 117 in just three months – and funded all the construction themselves.It’s part of a community-driven education project we’re running to
For many of us, receiving the ‘strap’ at school is a distant recollection, or something we’ve never before experienced.In Ethiopia though, corporal punishment in rural schools is often the norm.It is a norm we are changing. Our vision for quality education means we want to shift the education standards in Ethiopia from one where students
Merry Christmas from Ethiopia. No, we’re not horrendously late in sending out our holiday wishes. For today is the day Ethiopian Christians celebrate Christmas, or Ganna as it is called locally. The date is just the first in many differences between Ganna and how Christmas is celebrated in other parts of the world. For a
“Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” In a new twist on this old adage, a team of Ethiopian women did just that, but instead of landing among the stars, they made history in the skies. In one of the inspiring stories we came across in 2015, Ethiopian Airlines
Ethiopia is currently in the midst of a major challenge: a drought affecting 10 million people and requiring US$1.4 billion in humanitarian aid. It is drought initiated by the failed spring rains and compounded by the arrival of the El Niño weather conditions that weakened summer rains. At the same time, the country is also experiencing
Our goal is to give all Ethiopian children access to quality education, but that doesn’t mean we solely impact kids. Meet Makida, a mother so inspired by her community’s new school, she returned to study herself. The story of Makida Adam, a mother in the Meda Welabu region, begins like too many others in Ethiopia: She was
The story is all too real: a young Ethiopian girl, having had the fortune of receiving a primary school education, is set to be married at the age of 15. There is little question about her possibilities of further education, of developing skills and a career. Instead an outdated cultural tradition will see her role
Changing attitudes is a key step to ensuring every girl across the world gets an education. That was the message from Michelle Obama, the First Lady of the United States, who I had the pleasure to hear speak at the World Innovation Summit for Education in Qatar this week. “We know what’s possible when we
