Health
Ensuring healthy lives and promoting the well-being at all ages is essential to sustainable development.
The health status of Ethiopia is poor, even compared to other low-income countries in sub-Saharan Africa. The population suffers from a huge burden of potentially preventable diseases such as HIV, malaria, tuberculosis, intestinal parasites, acute respiratory infections and diarrhoeal diseases.
Health Post Projects
For most people living in rural areas of Ethiopia, their only access to health care is via a local Health Post, which are staffed by local, female Health Extension Workers. Health Posts are an essential hub of health activity, with Health Extension Workers providing immunizations, family planning and birth control, assessing and treating malnutrition, dispensing medication, disease testing, health education and promotion, referrals to Hospitals and a safe place for women to give birth.
In 2020 we will begin construction of the Aydafer Health Post, a new clinic that will service a rural community of 8,000 people.
Menstrual Pads for Girls
Very often, girls in remote villages of Ethiopia can’t find or afford sanitary pads, and they don’t have toilets or water at school. So during their periods, they use scraps of old clothing or dry grasses, which are unreliable and unhygienic. And they stay at home. Ashamed and scared.
All those missed days of school each month add up and it’s easy for girls to fall behind. They are also more likely to suffer with serious ill-health, including reproductive tract and urinary tract infections. Many girls drop out of school (51% by Grade 8) and many grow into women with less education, less opportunity and less say in their communities.
All because they don’t have access to sanitary pads and menstrual hygiene management education.
In 2019 we launched a new initiative to provide girls in a rural secondary school with washable pads.