Children Are Worth It! Support for street children
Donation protected
Hello friends,
My name is Ebasa Sarka, a child welfare social worker. I need your help to take a small step in proclaiming that homeless children are worth our sustained attention, friendship, and support.
I grew up in Ethiopia until I was 18 years old, when I came to live in the US. I recently returned to Ethiopia to visit my family and my birth town for the first time in 25 years. It was wonderful to reunite with my family – especially my mother, youngest brother and his new family. I also enjoyed the natural beauty, the culture, and of course the gorgeous people of my birth country. But each time I walked though Addis Ababa and other cities, I was dispirited with the excessive poverty, countless numbers of elders, families, and homeless children begging for money. I have felt similarly about the homeless population in my US hometown of Seattle, where children’s homelessness is invisible. The number of children living in the streets in Ethiopia particularly broke my spirit. The sheer number and visibility of children living in deplorable conditions, sleeping in open fields, and under cardboard on the streets moved me deeply. Although I felt overwhelmed, the least I could do was to commit to the fact that these children are worth my attention, friendship, and some kind of support. Their anguish, relentless struggle and hope is always on my mind.
Like many of you, I lose sleep thinking about what needs to be done about this problem, and what my specific role might be. There is no argument that real change requires tackling societal and economic structures that lead to such conditions for millions of children and their families – this is a gradual process involving multilevel systems and stakeholders. At the same time, my question is: can we or should we do something in the short term about children in the streets? My answer is an unequivocal yes, with a caveat that we get energized to take deliberate, well-reasoned small steps! While the cause is massive and urgent, we can do more damage if we don’t do it with care, full accountability, and determination.
After many years of thoughts, dreams, and relentless encouragement of many friends, I have decided that it is time to act with your partnership and support. I am forming a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing childhood homelessness and helping children currently sleeping in the streets of Ethiopia. I am calling this effort my CHAWI journey, that all children, including street & homeless Children Are Worth It! I believe they are worth our attention, friendship, and support.
While there are incredibly positive changes happening in Ethiopia, the country does not have the capacity to fully address the problem of the destitution of homeless children. What little attention there is from the government and NGO’s for homeless children is concentrated in bigger Ethiopian cities. My project to address this problem will start in the small town of Nekemte, where I spent nine years of my childhood, and which I consider to be my hometown.
I need your help to raise $5000.00 for the crucial phase of conducting a needs assessment to form a 501-c3 non-profit organization. This assessment will help us listen to voices in the community, specify our target population, identify their specific needs, and articulate effective ways of meeting those needs, including through collaborations with local stakeholders. I will travel to Nekemte to conduct the needs assessment for three interrelated purposes. First, I need to understand childhood homelessness locally—what is being done to address it, and potential solutions based on local knowledge and resources. I will meet and talk with children in the streets, families in abject poverty, government authorities, school principals, and other relevant stakeholders. While I am Indigenous to this region, I recognize my positionality and am committed to cultural humility, as I re-engage with local knowledge, laws, cultural and social mores. Second, I will collect baseline data to establish future comparability. Finally, both of the above efforts will guide and inform the design of a non-governmental organization. It will help determine the specific objectives in writing the 501-c3 proposal. This will include identifying specific areas of collaboration with local stakeholders, particularly around how we can efficiently allocate resources to prevent children’s homelessness and to help those on the street find stability. I trust that my connection to the community will help my credibility with the local authorities and community stakeholders.
While in Nekemte, I will keep you updated with the progress of my tasks on a Facebook (FB): CHAWI - Children Are Worth our Attention. My proposed budget for this assessment, the list of specific tasks, types of data to be collected are posted on the same FB page. I will also keep you informed on the date and location for my needs assessment report, as well as the next steps in this effort.
I am determined and focused on this purpose—to understand the problem firsthand as the children and their communities experience it, to form collaborative partnerships with them, and work together on finding solutions. I bring the expertise, training, experience, and level of credibility this task requires. More importantly, this is where my heart is. I am committed to the time and energy needed to launch this journey. I humbly ask for your financial support in proclaiming that each homeless child in Nekemte is worth our attention, friendship, and support.
With gratitude,
Ebasa B. Sarka
My name is Ebasa Sarka, a child welfare social worker. I need your help to take a small step in proclaiming that homeless children are worth our sustained attention, friendship, and support.
I grew up in Ethiopia until I was 18 years old, when I came to live in the US. I recently returned to Ethiopia to visit my family and my birth town for the first time in 25 years. It was wonderful to reunite with my family – especially my mother, youngest brother and his new family. I also enjoyed the natural beauty, the culture, and of course the gorgeous people of my birth country. But each time I walked though Addis Ababa and other cities, I was dispirited with the excessive poverty, countless numbers of elders, families, and homeless children begging for money. I have felt similarly about the homeless population in my US hometown of Seattle, where children’s homelessness is invisible. The number of children living in the streets in Ethiopia particularly broke my spirit. The sheer number and visibility of children living in deplorable conditions, sleeping in open fields, and under cardboard on the streets moved me deeply. Although I felt overwhelmed, the least I could do was to commit to the fact that these children are worth my attention, friendship, and some kind of support. Their anguish, relentless struggle and hope is always on my mind.
Like many of you, I lose sleep thinking about what needs to be done about this problem, and what my specific role might be. There is no argument that real change requires tackling societal and economic structures that lead to such conditions for millions of children and their families – this is a gradual process involving multilevel systems and stakeholders. At the same time, my question is: can we or should we do something in the short term about children in the streets? My answer is an unequivocal yes, with a caveat that we get energized to take deliberate, well-reasoned small steps! While the cause is massive and urgent, we can do more damage if we don’t do it with care, full accountability, and determination.
After many years of thoughts, dreams, and relentless encouragement of many friends, I have decided that it is time to act with your partnership and support. I am forming a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing childhood homelessness and helping children currently sleeping in the streets of Ethiopia. I am calling this effort my CHAWI journey, that all children, including street & homeless Children Are Worth It! I believe they are worth our attention, friendship, and support.
While there are incredibly positive changes happening in Ethiopia, the country does not have the capacity to fully address the problem of the destitution of homeless children. What little attention there is from the government and NGO’s for homeless children is concentrated in bigger Ethiopian cities. My project to address this problem will start in the small town of Nekemte, where I spent nine years of my childhood, and which I consider to be my hometown.
I need your help to raise $5000.00 for the crucial phase of conducting a needs assessment to form a 501-c3 non-profit organization. This assessment will help us listen to voices in the community, specify our target population, identify their specific needs, and articulate effective ways of meeting those needs, including through collaborations with local stakeholders. I will travel to Nekemte to conduct the needs assessment for three interrelated purposes. First, I need to understand childhood homelessness locally—what is being done to address it, and potential solutions based on local knowledge and resources. I will meet and talk with children in the streets, families in abject poverty, government authorities, school principals, and other relevant stakeholders. While I am Indigenous to this region, I recognize my positionality and am committed to cultural humility, as I re-engage with local knowledge, laws, cultural and social mores. Second, I will collect baseline data to establish future comparability. Finally, both of the above efforts will guide and inform the design of a non-governmental organization. It will help determine the specific objectives in writing the 501-c3 proposal. This will include identifying specific areas of collaboration with local stakeholders, particularly around how we can efficiently allocate resources to prevent children’s homelessness and to help those on the street find stability. I trust that my connection to the community will help my credibility with the local authorities and community stakeholders.
While in Nekemte, I will keep you updated with the progress of my tasks on a Facebook (FB): CHAWI - Children Are Worth our Attention. My proposed budget for this assessment, the list of specific tasks, types of data to be collected are posted on the same FB page. I will also keep you informed on the date and location for my needs assessment report, as well as the next steps in this effort.
I am determined and focused on this purpose—to understand the problem firsthand as the children and their communities experience it, to form collaborative partnerships with them, and work together on finding solutions. I bring the expertise, training, experience, and level of credibility this task requires. More importantly, this is where my heart is. I am committed to the time and energy needed to launch this journey. I humbly ask for your financial support in proclaiming that each homeless child in Nekemte is worth our attention, friendship, and support.
With gratitude,
Ebasa B. Sarka
Organizer
Ebasa Sarka
Organizer
Seattle, WA