The One Heart Wholeness Centre (www.ohwc.org.et)

Blessed greetings my name is Mena and I am the founder of a registered NGO, based in Bahir Dar Ethiopia called OHWC. We offer a therapeutic day service to profoundly disabled children living here in poverty. Disability is still regarded with such shame here that families hide these precious children away from their community in order to avoid the negative connotations attached to having a disabled child. Therefore people here do not get to see what amazing, resilient, incredible little people our children are. Because of this one of our aims at OHWC is to raise awareness within the local community, to encourage integration and inclusion of our children and to help people see the magic they possess. As the only service of its kind here in Bahir Dar we have a huge waiting list and daily have to disappoint mother's who have no other option once we say no for finding help and support for their child, it is truly heartbreaking watching them turn and leave. We need funding in order to not have to turn these mother's away. Funding that would help us extend our service and welcome new children into our family. We would in turn need to employ more staff meaning that as an organisation we can offer employment opportunities to a youthful workforce with lots of ambition but very few prospects. The current civil unrest in the country has caused many donors to reject offering funding to Ethiopian organizations but our children have nothing to do with this war, they, too are innocent victims of an ever increasing economy which makes buying even basic food supplies almost impossible to afford right now. Our running costs have more than doubled since the start of the conflict and we have been forced to make cuts wherever possible; sadly, the food budget is where we were forced to make the biggest changes. This is difficult as many of our children are already malnourished and being able to give them a healthy balanced diet was one of our strengths. Now we are forced to focus on whether or not we can maintain a service for them at all.

Our Ling term vision is to build KYAAH village, a home for life for some of the most vulnerable citizens of Bahir Dar. Elderly people, abandoned children, young single mother's and profoundly disabled children with high dependency needs will live together creating a new family and support network for themselves, a safe home for life and a place where they are free to dream and expect that those dreams can come true