Last week, I talked a bit about the plight of orphaned children in Ethiopia and the reasons why so many of them never make it into care or into an orphanage.
ANTME's lovely and talented mother over at Habesha Child, is a board member of an amazing agency that is addressing these issues. Here's some background from the Ethiopian Orphan Relief site:
Ethiopian Orphan Relief is dedicated to improving the lives of Ethiopian orphans.
In Ethiopia, approximately 1 in 10 children die in infancy, and nearly double that number die by their 5th birthday, due to infections, tetanus and diarrhea. Ethiopia is considered the 3rd worst place in the world to be born, better only than Burkina Faso and Djibouti. Of the children who survive, many will lose their mother in childbirth and many more will lose one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. As more and more parents die, the capacity of extended family members to take care of orphans shrinks. Ethiopia has reached the breaking point where orphaned children are now forced into the streets, into difficult working conditions and/or into heading their households.
In 2001, 13.2% of the population, 3.8 million children, were orphaned. In comparison, the 1994 genocide in Rwanda resulted in 500,000 orphans and the 2004 Tsunami in Southeast Asia resulted in 10,000 orphans. In 2006, only 731 orphans were adopted by American parents. 3,799,269 orphans remain vulnerable--it is the goal of Ethiopian Orphan Relief to help address this problem.
If you have a chance, click over to their website and read more about the good works they are doing.
Bonus - if you have an Ethiopian child you MUST check out this opportunity for your child! You have to hurry though - the deadline is August 6th.
