NEW YORK, USA (AVING) - Kia Motors announced today the donation of a mobile clinic in Ethiopia, one of the world's least developed countries, as a means to help improve maternal and infant health. According to current Ethiopian health data, pregnancy related problems account for 13.8% of in-patient mortality among women of child bearing age.
The philanthropic donation is part of Kia Motors' "Moving the World Together" CSR initiative. The specialized and equipped mobile clinic is fully funded by Kia Motors.
Mr. Hyoung-Keun Lee, Senior Executive Vice President & COO of the International Business Division, said, "This is a meaningful and important project for Kia Motors. Ethiopia has a high infant and maternal mortality rate, and we believe that this mobile clinic will provide necessary medical care to those in hard-to-reach areas of the country."
The Kia mobile clinic is constructed to provide prenatal care, postpartum care, gynecological examinations and child immunizations. The inside of the clinic is divided into a delivery and gynecological examination room, an ultrasound /ECG/ and vaccination room, and a patient consultation room. Equipped with everything from an incubator to a fetal heart monitor to infant delivery instruments, this mobile clinic ensures proper care for both mothers and infants.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Church in Fargo, North Dakota launching effort to help boys in Ethiopian orphanage
Church launching effort to help boys in Ethiopian orphanage
Theresa and David Held returned from Ethiopia with a beautiful baby girl, an admiration for her countrymen’s scrappy spirit and awareness that Western adoptions help only a tiny fraction of the country’s 6 million orphans.
Olivet Lutheran Church pastor Kris Gorden, clockwise from left, Nicole and Abram Anderson, Maya, David and Theresa Held, Bethlehm Gronneberg and Solomon Anderson are involved in an initiative to help orphans from Ethiopia. The Andersons and Helds both adopted their children from Ethiopia.
)
Theresa and David Held returned from Ethiopia with a beautiful baby girl, an admiration for her countrymen’s scrappy spirit and awareness that Western adoptions help only a tiny fraction of the country’s 6 million orphans.
It was summer 2007, and the Fargo couple resolved to do more.
They soon found out two other families at their church, Fargo’s Olivet Lutheran, had recently adopted infants from Ethiopia. Earlier this year, the three couples spearheaded a project to help an entire orphanage in the east African nation. The ramshackle all-boys facility is a very different place from the inviting, Western-funded care center where the Helds picked up their daughter, Maya.
Today, the church is launching its long-distance “adoption” of 130 boys and young men at Kolfe Youth Orphanage. Church members are calling it Connection Day.
“Sponsorship just sounded so sterile,” said the rev. Kris Gorden. “Connection holds more of what we want to be about.”
Just as the Helds, Nicole Anderson and her husband, Jared, traveled to Africa to start a family. They found themselves profoundly transformed by its residents’ warmth and hopefulness in the face of abject poverty.
“Life as we knew it was over,” said Nicole, who has two sons from Ethiopia and one from South Africa.
For some time, David Held followed the work of a Christian-based nonprofit named Children’s HopeChest. Since the early 1990s, the group has worked with orphans in Russia, where studies say 70 percent of those from orphanages resort to crime or prostitution to survive.
The group enlisted some 100 churches across the United States to sponsor orphanages there and in Swaziland. When the organization expanded its work into Ethiopia last fall, the Helds had to get involved. Gorden and the other adoptive families promptly got on board.
Olivet picked Kolfe – a government-run orphanage and a one-time dumping ground – because its residents seemed to need help the most desperately. The boys there are older, so their chances of getting adopted are miniscule. There are no beds, no meat in their meager diet and no money for school.
But HopeChest President Tom Davis said the boys were nothing like he expected: “They were the most well-mannered, kind, gentle young men I met in my life. The thing I kept hearing over and over was how much they wanted to go to school.”
The Olivet group hopes help from their church will give the boys a better shot at an independent life as adults. On Connection Day, the church’s roughly 1,500 families will be able to “adopt” one of the boys. Their $34 monthly checks will go toward food, medicine, school, and college fees and supplies.
A group from Olivet will make an annual trip to the orphanage. Until then, sponsors commit to write to the boys monthly. Says David Helm, “You let this child know, ‘We’re here for you. We support you and believe in you. We’re the family you never had.’ ”
How to help:
- Nonmembers of Fargo’s Olivet Lutheran Church are welcome to help with sponsoring Kolfe Youth Orphanage. Call David Held at (701) 330-2478 or the Rev. Kris Gorden at (701) 235-6603.
Theresa and David Held returned from Ethiopia with a beautiful baby girl, an admiration for her countrymen’s scrappy spirit and awareness that Western adoptions help only a tiny fraction of the country’s 6 million orphans.
Olivet Lutheran Church pastor Kris Gorden, clockwise from left, Nicole and Abram Anderson, Maya, David and Theresa Held, Bethlehm Gronneberg and Solomon Anderson are involved in an initiative to help orphans from Ethiopia. The Andersons and Helds both adopted their children from Ethiopia.
)
Theresa and David Held returned from Ethiopia with a beautiful baby girl, an admiration for her countrymen’s scrappy spirit and awareness that Western adoptions help only a tiny fraction of the country’s 6 million orphans.
It was summer 2007, and the Fargo couple resolved to do more.
They soon found out two other families at their church, Fargo’s Olivet Lutheran, had recently adopted infants from Ethiopia. Earlier this year, the three couples spearheaded a project to help an entire orphanage in the east African nation. The ramshackle all-boys facility is a very different place from the inviting, Western-funded care center where the Helds picked up their daughter, Maya.
Today, the church is launching its long-distance “adoption” of 130 boys and young men at Kolfe Youth Orphanage. Church members are calling it Connection Day.
“Sponsorship just sounded so sterile,” said the rev. Kris Gorden. “Connection holds more of what we want to be about.”
Just as the Helds, Nicole Anderson and her husband, Jared, traveled to Africa to start a family. They found themselves profoundly transformed by its residents’ warmth and hopefulness in the face of abject poverty.
“Life as we knew it was over,” said Nicole, who has two sons from Ethiopia and one from South Africa.
For some time, David Held followed the work of a Christian-based nonprofit named Children’s HopeChest. Since the early 1990s, the group has worked with orphans in Russia, where studies say 70 percent of those from orphanages resort to crime or prostitution to survive.
The group enlisted some 100 churches across the United States to sponsor orphanages there and in Swaziland. When the organization expanded its work into Ethiopia last fall, the Helds had to get involved. Gorden and the other adoptive families promptly got on board.
Olivet picked Kolfe – a government-run orphanage and a one-time dumping ground – because its residents seemed to need help the most desperately. The boys there are older, so their chances of getting adopted are miniscule. There are no beds, no meat in their meager diet and no money for school.
But HopeChest President Tom Davis said the boys were nothing like he expected: “They were the most well-mannered, kind, gentle young men I met in my life. The thing I kept hearing over and over was how much they wanted to go to school.”
The Olivet group hopes help from their church will give the boys a better shot at an independent life as adults. On Connection Day, the church’s roughly 1,500 families will be able to “adopt” one of the boys. Their $34 monthly checks will go toward food, medicine, school, and college fees and supplies.
A group from Olivet will make an annual trip to the orphanage. Until then, sponsors commit to write to the boys monthly. Says David Helm, “You let this child know, ‘We’re here for you. We support you and believe in you. We’re the family you never had.’ ”
How to help:
- Nonmembers of Fargo’s Olivet Lutheran Church are welcome to help with sponsoring Kolfe Youth Orphanage. Call David Held at (701) 330-2478 or the Rev. Kris Gorden at (701) 235-6603.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Ethiopia Reads Event at TouchStone Gallery!
Bernos.org, in collaboration with Ethiopia Reads and Tsehai Publishers, is proud to host 'Cocktails for Reading' – an event that is in between a cocktail party and networking event among authors, publishers, readers and organizations involved with reading in Ethiopia and the Ethiopian diaspora community.
Our keynote speakers will be Yohannes Gebregeorgis, co-founder of Ethiopia Reads and recent CNN Hero, and Elias Wondimu, founder of Tsehai Publishers and Ambassador for Peace.
The Event will be held on:
October 11, 2008 beginning at 5:30 PM
Touchstone Gallery
406 7th Street NW – 2nd Floor
Washington, DC 20004
For more information, please contact Tsilat Petros with Ethiopia Reads at tsilat@ethiopiareads.org.
Hope for Children US Event at the Embassy of Ethiopia
Additional information regarding the event that
will be held at the Embassy of Ethiopia this Friday.
First, the event is FREE.
Sidamo Coffee and Tea will be there, and they will be doing a coffee
ceremony. (www.sidamocoffeeandtea.com)
There will be Ethiopian food as well as Ferengi/Continental/American
food.
The event is kid-friendly, there will be a table for children to
color or play during the evening.
There will be a silent auction and there are A LOT of Ethiopian items
in the auction -- great, fun things including some wonderful art work
from an emerging Ethiopian artist.
If you are looking for ways to help and become involved in the
Ethiopian/Ethiopian-American community a number of other non-profits
will have representatives in attendance.
Please Join Us For
"A Night in Ethiopia"
To Support Hope for Children's
Youth Learning Center
Friday, September 26, 7 PM
The Ethiopian Embassy, 3506 International Drive, NW, Washington, DC
Hosted by Carol Rhees, Bonnie Harkness, Freda and Gary Temple,
Ruthann Bates, Catie Dupont
Please bring your friends and family!
RSVP carhees@... / 301.229.9591
For more information, go to www.hopeforchildrenus.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We hope that you can join us on September 26 for a fun-filled and
informative evening. If you are unable to attend but wish to make a
tax-deductible contribution, checks should be made payable to Hope
for Children US and should be mailed to 5801 Searl Terrace, Bethesda,
MD 20816. You can also donate on-line at our website,
www.hopeforchildrenus.org.
Parking: Parking in the evening is available in any of the reserved
Embassy spots along International Drive. There is also a parking
garage on Van Ness where you turn onto International Drive.
We hope to see you on the 26th!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Hope for Children Event - September 26, 2008
Please Join Us For
"A Night in Ethiopia"
To Support Hope for Children's
Youth Learning Center
Friday, September 26, 7 PM
The Ethiopian Embassy, 3506 International Drive, NW, Washington, DC
Hosted by Carol Rhees, Bonnie Harkness, Freda and Gary Temple,
Ruthann Bates, Catie Dupont
Please bring your friends and family!
RSVP carhees@aol.com / 301.229.9591
For more information, go to www.hopeforchildrenus.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We hope that you can join us on September 26 for a fun-filled and informative evening. If you are unable to attend but wish to make a tax-deductible contribution, checks should be made payable to Hope for Children US and should be mailed to 5801 Searl Terrace, Bethesda, MD 20816. You can also donate on-line at our website, www.hopeforchildrenus.org.
Parking: Parking in the evening is available in any of the reserved Embassy spots along International Drive. There is also a parking garage on Van Ness where you turn onto International Drive.
We hope to see you on the 26th!
"A Night in Ethiopia"
To Support Hope for Children's
Youth Learning Center
Friday, September 26, 7 PM
The Ethiopian Embassy, 3506 International Drive, NW, Washington, DC
Hosted by Carol Rhees, Bonnie Harkness, Freda and Gary Temple,
Ruthann Bates, Catie Dupont
Please bring your friends and family!
RSVP carhees@aol.com / 301.229.9591
For more information, go to www.hopeforchildrenus.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We hope that you can join us on September 26 for a fun-filled and informative evening. If you are unable to attend but wish to make a tax-deductible contribution, checks should be made payable to Hope for Children US and should be mailed to 5801 Searl Terrace, Bethesda, MD 20816. You can also donate on-line at our website, www.hopeforchildrenus.org.
Parking: Parking in the evening is available in any of the reserved Embassy spots along International Drive. There is also a parking garage on Van Ness where you turn onto International Drive.
We hope to see you on the 26th!
Have you gotten your tickets to the 2008 Mesgana Dancer Tour yet?
September 7, Ethiopian New Yearʼs Festival @ Lake Merritt Park, Oakland, CA
September 13 @ Rose Wagner Theatre, Salt Lake City, UT
September 20 @ GW Lisner Auditorium, Washington, DC
September 27 @ South Orange Performing Arts Center, South Orange, NJ
For more information visit www.coeef.org
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Smile at A Girl - Ethiopia
Locals for Literacy: celebrate girls while supporting
educational programs for children in Ethiopia
August 11, 2008 – Childhood friends who discovered a mutual love of international travel during a high-school trip to the USSR, Dr. Laura Anderson and Catie Askegreen Dupont have teamed up to publish Dr. Anderson’s children’s book Smile at a Girl, Ethiopia which celebrates the joy of girlhood through verse and images. Smile at a Girl, Ethiopia offers a poetic reminder of how important it is to encourage girls to live, move, dream, and accept themselves with boldness and joy. All proceeds from sales of the book will go to support programs run by Ethiopia Reads and will put books into the hands of young boys and girls who’ve never before had access to libraries or written stories.
Smile at a Girl, Ethiopia showcases girls as they engage in a wide variety of enriching activities, from laughing with friends to playing drums, from dancing and traveling to dreaming and reading. The text reminds readers of the power of a positive word or gesture: “Whisper encouragement to a girl/’Just do the best you can do.’/Burst with pride and hug her/When she dares to try something new.” The text was inspired by an active childhood in coastal Maine and by Laura’s travels across 38 countries, during which she observed the challenges and opportunities that await girls in every corner of the globe.
“I have been lucky to see young girls at play and at work in cultures all over the world,” says Anderson, a clinical psychologist who works in the public school system on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. “There is nothing like the laughter of girls giggling freely in play.” Small town Maine introduced both Laura and Catie to the joy of story telling and showed them that books build imaginations and enhance opportunities.
Later in life, after traversing Southern, Central, Eastern and Northern Africa, Dr. Anderson developed a special appreciation for Ethiopia when visiting her childhood friend Catie Dupont who lived there with her family while working for the US Embassy. An active volunteer in Washington, DC, Dupont currently leads efforts to support the publication of Smile at a Girl Ethiopia. So far, the project has received financial support from the Hanalei Hawaiian Civic Canoe Club, the Kapaa Rotary Club, and individual donors. Dupont aspires to raise $10,000 for the project.
Dr. Anderson’s text will be complemented by vivid photographs taken by Matthew Andrea, a DC-based volunteer who fell in love with Ethiopia after visiting in 2007. The book will be sold in the United States as a fundraiser for Ethiopia Reads and also distributed throughout the organization’s growing network of free libraries for children in Ethiopia. In keeping with Ethiopia Reads’ commitment to providing culturally relevant materials for children, Smile at a Girl Ethiopia will feature text in the Ethiopian language of Amharic.
About Ethiopia Reads
Based in Denver, CO and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Ethiopia Reads is a grassroots, volunteer-led non-profit organization that works to create a reading culture in Ethiopia. Ethiopia Reads plants libraries for children, publishes books in English as well as local languages and trains teachers and library workers to cultivate a love of reading in children. Co-founder Yohannes Gebregeorgis was recently named a “Hero” by CNN News. Board President Jane Kurtz is an internationally published children’s author and speaker.
Please visit http://www.ethiopiareads.org/ for more information.
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