Global Issues Club

Ethiopia is perhaps one of the most unlucky countries in the world. They have been stripped of their few natural resources throughout the years and are now relying on mainly agriculture to support them. This wouldn’t be as big of a problem if they had plenty of arable land but in reality only about ten percent of the whole country has fertile farming soil. The locals continue to farm making the situation worse because by working the land they’re over farming what little left they have of usable land causing desertification.

Another problem Ethiopia is currently facing is the lack of access to clean fresh water. The area is often common to very long droughts making the farming and getting fresh water more complicated. Ethiopia has also had trouble with disease. As of 2007 one point five million people suffered from HIV in Ethiopia alone. The majority of these diseases could be easily avoided with some knowledge of hygiene such as, schistosomiasis, hepatitis A and B and typhoid fever.  Educating them about what water is safe to drink and what isn’t and disease prevention through hygiene is an even bigger problem with the literacy rate only being about forty two percent.

The only chance Ethiopia has of becoming a successful country or even maybe surviving is a brighter future. The best way to assure a better future is to educate the children; they will lead the next generation hopefully to a more promising future for their country and the sake of their own lives.

Sunday’s keynote was very successful. Both Claire and Bisrat gave presentations. Claire gave a presentation on her life and her work in Ethiopia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Uganda and many more places. First, she told a bit about her life and dyslexia. From there she jumped to her joining the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). She explained her work in the feeding center in Ethiopia and the hard choices she was forced to make, the choices that haunted her for about 20 years later. She told small events that happened in different war zones. She said “War is not the answer“. One of the points she emphasized on was that no matter where you go, no matter who the people are their all humans, and at the end of the day all that matters is “Humanity“.

After Claire’s amazing presentation, Bisrat told a bit about A-Cet and how A-Cet helps kids in Ethiopia. He also showed a ten minute video on A-Cet which also showed the man who started A-Cet, David Stables.Bisrat’s main point was “A little goes a long way”, the more we do the better.

During the Keynote Middle, High and Elementary kids were doing fund raising. The Middle and High school were selling the A-Cet wristbands and Claire’s book “Moving Mountains”. The Elementary had a bake sale. After Claire and Bisrat had presented Mr. Johnston gave Claire and Bisrat each and ASD T-Shirt and in addition gave Bisrat 10 T-Shirt for him to take bake to Ethiopia for the kids in A-Cet. But the biggest news was that the whole school in the past months, through small fund raisers, had raised $5,000. That’s a real good start. All ASD needs is support from everybody out there. Sunday’s Keynote was a great success.

Leila

Tell us what you think if you attended this amazing event. Leave us a comment. Join the conversation!

Ethiopia

When you hear Ethiopia, what’s your first impression of this nation? Many think it’s just another country in the continent of Africa. Some people at school refer to the bracelets we sold to raise funds. I’ve heard a lot of responses to what they think it is like. But Ethiopia is more than what you think…

Ethiopia is a large country located in the Horn of Africa. In fact, Ethiopia is the 27th largest country in the world. Its areas are vast and rocky. Many mountains with high elevations are found all over Ethiopia. Not many sites are green and fertile. Most of the land is covered with sand and dirt. The temperatures could get very high. It varies from 30 to 50 degrees Celsius in the daytime.
This great country has many backgrounds to it. There are many mixtures of culture, religion and history. Ethiopia has a combination of many religions, but Christianity and Islam are the two major ones. Both religions date back to ancient Ethiopian times. There are many other local and more traditional religions. The Ethiopian culture is very unique, but a bit similar to most African countries. They have many interesting music, dance and art. Their arts are very distinctive. Many of them are made from the ancient Ethiopian times. Folklore and legends are also popular in Ethiopia and other countries. Its history is precious and is a lot about their culture, religion and lifestyle. African history is very interesting and unique. Legends describe special events that treasured their hearts. Their artifacts are very important and the key-role into solving their timeless history.
Ethiopia is a very remarkable nation. But along with that, the country is also dealing major issues. Some of the issues they are solving with are: deforestation, famine and lack of education. Ethiopia is slowly improving these problems. Something that is a major cause of other issues is the lack of education. Because of the lack of education, many people cannot take care of their lives properly and doesn’t know how to solve critical situations. If they would consider education as an important part of their lives, many problems could be solved. For example, if they had basic education, they could tell the difference between clean water and un-clean water. Another issue they could solve is HIV/Aids. They would have more sense and knowledge on how to prevent issues.
Ethiopia is definitely a special and extraordinary country. It’s famous for its culture and history. Yet, this nation is suffering many issues and problems. They are slowly decreasing it, but these issues spread around the place very quickly. Next time when someone asks what Ethiopia is like, you could give them a more detailed and interesting answer. Help spread awareness about this unique country.

By Nabila

Ethiopia is the second largest populated country in the horn of Africa…or Eastern Africa. It is bordered by Sudan to the West, Djibouti to the North East and Somalia to the East. Sadly, Ethiopia is known as one of the poorest areas in the world and Ethiopia is dealing with many issues due to that. One of the major problems is famine.

For decades, Ethiopia has had many droughts and chronic hunger with children worst hit. Preventable diseases and malnutrition on average kills up to half a million Ethiopian children a year. Starvation in Africa has become more frequent, more widespread, more sever and affects about 7.9 million people! Ethiopia has had many past famines like the ones in 1983-1985.

Now why is there famine in Ethiopia? Well, Ethiopia is among many of the countries that are not self-sufficient in food growth. Food growth is “bad” because of soil infertility, land degradation, erosion and desert locusts-that destroy crops and are a factor of livestock diseases. There are frequent droughts and lack of rain fall and Ethiopia doesn’t have a good system to collect and save water for the dry seasons leading to many people and animals starving to death. The time between each drought is small, so it’s really very hard to recover from it. They’re crying for help… and we should do what we can to help.

Many organizations are helping in support of Ethiopia and the problem with famine such as Unicef and United Nations. UN world food program launched an appeal to provide emergency relief food to countries in the horn of Africa, where more than 12 million people are threatened with starvation.

ASD is helping to build and fund the school for the local children and people of Ethiopia. ASD is also having fundraisers to help raise money that we can send to the school. Here are some ways that YOU can help. Visit these websites for more information and how you can help-

World Food Program
Children’s Hunger Relief Fund 
Unicef
Children International 

United Nations food agency reported that malnutrition rates have reached alarming levels and in 2005, about 10.1 million children died before the age of five, ¾ of the deaths in Africa-one of the regions that suffers from the highest rate of hunger and malnutrition. I hope this had some impact on you and made you want to help make their lives better.

by Farah

Natasha also said:

I noticed there’s not much on the environmental part of our blog so here’s a really good short video on global warming done by Leonardo Di Caprio

You can also go to Leonardo Di Caprio Eco Site for more information.

Everyone needs to check out these sites! It takes so little effort that goes such a long way in the world. Playing games or simply clicking on a link found on these sites donates food, clothes, water, and even money to different organizations around the world. This may sound a little unrealistic, but by a simple click on a link, you will donate all sorts of things. Check them out and if you know of any other sites like these please share them with us!

www.freerice.com
www.thehungersite.com
www.hungerfighters.com
www.porloschicos.com
www.children.care2.com
www2.povertyfighters.com
www.bhookh.com
www.ripple.org

Natasha

There are many ways that you can raise awareness, such as putting up posters, giving speeches, and having fundraisers. When putting up posters you should put them in a place where everybody will see them or where they will stick like the in the bathrooms, and the poster should be bright so it catches peoples’ eyes as they walk by. The facts on the posters should be short but meaningful so that people can and will remember them.

When giving a speech there should be a power point or a short, interesting clip. In the speech there should be facts that are out of the ordinary and shocking, so you capture the audiences attention and keep it. Usually during a fundraiser there will be people who just want to give money to be nice but they don’t really care what its for, you don’t want this because they don’t gain any awareness. To avoid having careless givers you should make it as hard as possible for someone not to learn anything, a way to do this is to give someone a slip of paper with a fact every time they make a donation. Then when the fundraiser is done you should have a game, like Who Wants to be a Millionaire, in this game the players will have to use the facts that they got during the fundraiser to get a prize.

by Nick

I think that individual actions are very important because one person can help to make the problem a little better. For example, let’s say there are ten pieces of trash on the ground and you pick up one piece. Now there are only nine pieces of trash left which is better than ten pieces. So by helping one little problem you help fix a part of a bigger problem. Also, if one person gives two dollars to a charity in Africa then your two dollars can help save ten lives. I also think that individual actions are so important because once you do something for charity then you may inspire others to start giving to charities or to start one. Also individual acts are so important because everything that has ever been done has been started by one person with one idea, like Benjamin Franklin or Clair Bertschinger.

Some people do nothing because they assume someone else will, but if everyone thought that way then nothing would get done. And as Edmund Burke said, “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”.

by Rylee

“When acts of kindness go unnoticed, it’s oven only because the human who initiated the kindness thought so little of his or her work. Individual acts are just as important as any that any organization can do, though a lot of people do not think so.

A lot of good deeds are cancelled or left in the “action queue”, par say, because no one seems to think that they can do anything that matters. In fact, the fact that organizations are glamorized in their success may be harming the dreams of people who want to start their own. UNICEF, for example, is a well-known child service organization. Maybe someone who just gives twenty dollars to a child on the street feels that they’ve done something of lesser value than what UNICEF could have done.

Of course, I’m not denouncing any organizations — they are one of the most profitable ideas that anyone has come up with. J However, I think that it is important to keep in mind the fact that those organizations were, to begin with, someone’s little mind child. Someone’s dream.

One person started it all. One person — and that one person who could make another helpful organization could be anyone.

Maybe even you.

Juilia

When our generation of students think of education, we think of university, a nice job, the white picket fence and maybe a dog in there somewhere. When Sammy Ayalew, an A-CET trustee, addresses education, he says “Educate us, and we can develop Africa.”
The African Children’s Education Trust – otherwise known as A-CET – is an independent responsive charity run by efficient, competent and caring volunteers that help vulnerable young Africans reach their potential through education. It was puzzling to read this sentence on the charity’s website, and realize just how little justice this one sentence does to the whole movement. This organization’s professional purpose may be to educate under-privileged African children in order to give them a better chance of surviving in the world today, but many fail to see the amount of love, enthusiasm and pure joy these kids receive and experience through A-CET. Skilled and dedicated volunteers, who do not see a dime in the form of salaries or even a penny spent on professional fundraising, have let A-CET consume their lives in the quest to let these children have what every child should: a chance at life.
This may be fanciful thinking, or I could just be exercising my rhetoric, but the best thing about this whole charity – it works. In less than 10 years they have grown from supporting just seven youngsters to now supporting over two thousand, principally Ethiopians. They award long-term scholarships, have set up four Computer Training Centres for high school girl leavers and have constructed two rural community elementary schools. They work though an Ethiopian partner NGO (The Ethiopian Youth Educational Support, EYES) which was set up and is run by ex-A-CET students.
David, the chairman and founder of A-CET, wrote on his website a very interesting part that sums up exactly why this charity works:

“Forget Millennium Development Goals with international politicians’ platitudes - none of which are on target. Forget hefty re-hashed reports and empty promises. Forget billions in squandered aid budgets, reports of corruption and the professional “fat cat” aid set. Education is the future for Africa: real targeted development at community level for Africans by Africans. With minimal outlay through A-CET and negligible overheads, we can produce maximum impact and output. We don’t talk about it, we empower Ethiopians and let them get on with it. It’s no secret formula, only common sense. Listen to what the Africans want, assess, get the funds to facilitate - and then let the Africans implement it.”

The relatively modest support A-CET receives is making an absolutely life-changing difference to thousands of young lives and should never be under-estimated. We need to start realizing that this charity needs our help. A-CET needs our help. And these children need our help. Today. Now. And from all of us. The same principal from home is applied here - sharing is caring, and whether it be the last Hershey bar, or a few more cents and seconds spent on A-CET and Africa, every bit counts.

by priyanka
Another viewpoint:

A-CET, or the African Children’s Educational Trust, is a trustworthy group of people that volunteer to help kids like us get a better education in Africa. Thousands of destitute, and suffering children that have lost their parents, money, and have no home have been helped by A-CET. Lots have gained scholarships, and some youngsters have gone to other places in the world to gain more knowledge and experience. None of them have forgotten a place like A-CET, which helped them strive to reach their goals of becoming educated in a poverty-stricken place like Africa, throughout their childhood. More than ninety percent of the money they make goes directly to help the kids. None of it is wasted on idle things.
A-CET’s main goal was very simple: Make a difference in the world. Now look how far they’ve come with just a straightforward mission. David Stables was the man behind all this. He took an uncomplicated goal and made it into something colossal. He runs A-CET just out of a small room in his house. They don’t need a mansion, or imported items from the US to be successful. They just needed a dream, and determination behind it. A-CET doesn’t even have fundraisers; instead they receive donations and get charity. A bit of money to you may be a lot to a needy African child without an education. All they need from us is our support, and a good will behind it. Are you willing to help?
by Nishat

Just found this great video…I am having trouble embedding, so click here to watch.

 About Director:

Christian is an eleven-year-old who wrote, directed, produced, and edited this documentary BY HIMSELF about his experience in Ethiopia, Africa. Although not the initial plan, in the past several months reactions to his film have led to the development of a much needed reconstruction project in an Ethiopian elementary school where children still sit on the dirt floors for their lessons. Christian and his friends have experienced a paradigm shift with the realization that they (elementary students) CAN change the face of education half a world away! By letting go of limiting thoughts and “being the change they wish to see in the world”, they are challenging others to live and love LARGE…right NOW!

About the film:

The images and video show a rare view of this young American boy (9yrs) and his sister (8yrs) traveling through small villages and bridged the cultural gap through the language of music.
Tourism is relatively new to this East African nation due to many years of civil war and unfortunately it has been long associated with draught, famine, and AIDS. You are about to learn of a new Ethiopia, one of beauty, of peace… of hope. A nation of natural and cultural wonders once hidden by a thick veil of war and hunger.