Miratu’s Place on the Street

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Miratu is one of the first youth who was supported by BSCFAS. In both the first picture, you see him standing with one of his street friends, holding the baby of the women who he was sharing the small piece of land in front of the fence. In the second picture you see Miratu, four other youth and the women with her baby in front of the first home he established for street youth. The women later left the home without any notification or way of reaching her. Getachew arranged with the regional government officials to adopt the baby, Ephraim, into his own family and has raised him as one of his own children. The final picture was taken 5 years later at the present location of Bethel Street Home. You see Miratu in the middle of the back row happy, attending school and functioning as a leader in the house. We are now seeing all these boys a couple of times per week and have grown fond of them as we pass time filled with humorous anecdotes of us learning to communicate with each other in our broken Amharic and English.

A Family In Hawassa We Can Help

Since we’ve received our work permit with Getachew’s NGO Bethel Street Children and Family Aids Services (BSCFAS), we’ve been discovering many opportunities to help the children of the street and their families. BSCFAS has successfully lifted 14 boys out of the dangers of the streets of Hawassa during the past 5 years. Getachew’s NGO has focused on prevention, also, helping the parental figures of families keep their children in school by supplementing whatever little income the family has by a stipend with the condition that the child must remain in school. The first picture shows the home of two children and the children’s mother who was lying paralyzed near his home and begging with her children. She asked Gethachew to care for her daughter as her family was to poor to support both children. Getachew hadn’t seen the mother for 5 months and later met the father who told him the mother had died in the hospital 2 months prior. The final picture shows the father, his two children and their aunt struggling to survive after the mother’s death. The father still lacked the ability to support his children and Getachew agreed to pay the daughter’s school fees until Bethel could start a home for girls. There are few homes in Hawassa for girls living in such abject poverty. We believe we can gather the necessary funds to establish such a house for girls and will keep you appraised of the opportunity to support this project.