Asra Hawariat School in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, is one of the charities that our church supports. On a visit to Ethiopia in December, Sara and I visited the school. It was our first return in almost forty years since we left the country in 1967. For nine years, I was a teacher at the General Wingate School, then a British Council supported boarding school for Ethiopian boys. During my time there, one of my students, Asfau Yimeru, quite on his own initiative, started teaching some of the poorest street children under a tree in the churchyard just over the wall from the Wingate. This was the humble beginning of the Asra Hawariat School.
Asfau came to our hotel and drove us out to the school through the hectic and frantic traffic of modern day Addis Ababa. On arrival, after driving down an unbelievably rocky track, we were immediately struck by the peace of the school. It seemed a haven of tranquillity after the noise and bustle of our journey.
Today the school has approximately 2,000 children on two sites. Grades 1 to 3 are on the original site, while grades 4 to 8 are on the newer and larger site some 5 km away. It is the equivalent of a primary school in this country, though many Ethiopian students are older because they often start school at a later age. The children all come from deprived backgrounds. Some are orphans; others are survivors of war or natural disasters; many come from single parent families; all are victims of abject poverty. Originally Asfau had a boarding area for the orphans, but today he finds foster families to care for them. As he told me, “They need the love of a family.” Nobody could imagine such backgrounds from the happy smiling faces which greeted us. These children are a delight, and it is a lovely thing to witness their relationship with Asfau. “He is our father,” we were told by many.
Ethiopia is an Orthodox Christian country and boys and girls are educated together. In fact, there are slightly more girls than boys in the school today. Many pupils cannot go on to secondary school. Ethiopian women have always been renowned for their beauty. Many girls are targeted by human traffickers who lure them to the flesh pots of the Middle East, where they end up as virtual slaves. Asfau is very concerned that the girls must leave school with confidence and skill enough to make a living if they are to resist such a fate.
We visited classrooms and were able to observe lessons, see books, and talk to students and to teachers. We were extremely impressed by the standard of work. Beautiful handwriting in well kept and highly valued exercise books was the norm. All the books that we saw were marked up to date by the teachers. I ought to point out here, that these children are not only being taught in two languages, English and Amharic, but also in two very different scripts. Amharic has 33 consonants and 7 vowel sounds. A consonant has the vowel sound added to it making a total of 231 symbols. This does not seem to faze the children at all!
There are no televisions, no computers, no inter-active white boards’, or other essentials of classrooms in the UK. Teaching is old-fashioned “chalk and talk” but the children appear to thrive on it. It is a long time since we saw such attentive, well behaved and hard working children. When we commented on this to Asfau, he said, “They have to work hard. This is their one chance in life and they do not mean to give it up.” Later we noticed groups of children sitting on the ground doing their homework during their play time. Asfau explained that they had no light in their homes and were unable to do the work in the evenings.
At the end of the 8th grade all students take the national 8th grade examination, which is the barrier to a secondary education. Asra Hawariat School achieves the best results in the whole country. This is a great compliment to Asfau and his staff of dedicated teachers.
Attached to the school, there is a farm on the second site. Asfau raised the money to purchase land for this second site by doing a sponsored walk. He walked from Addis Ababa to Harar, a distance of 750kms. In 1966, he had obtained the original site by petitioning Emperor Haile Selassie, who granted his request for land. I can vouch for this as I saw Asfau’s dramatic presentation myself.
The need for children to have milk led Asfau to purchase a few cows. There are now some 37 milking cows. 20% of the milk is sold to cover expenses. The rest of the milk is given to poor families looking after the children. Nothing is wasted. Even the cattle dung is dried in the sun and the resulting “cakes” given to be burnt. This discourages families from taking firewood for their cooking from the surrounding trees. There are also well kept vegetable gardens. These are used to train the families in growing a variety of food crops. Asfau helps set them up in small farms just outside Addis Ababa where they can make a living growing produce to sell.
Nobody can fail to be impressed by a visit. This school is flourishing and doing an amazing job. Asfau is a driven man. The school has been his life now for over 40 years. He sees something that needs doing and he just goes ahead and does it. He spends no time at all congratulating himself on what he has accomplished, but anyone else can see it is remarkable.
The school receives no government money and depends exclusively for funding on the Asra Hawariat School Fund. This is a registered charity run by the Rev Tim Kinahan, 2 Woodland Avenue, Helen’s Bay, Co Down, BT19 1TX. This is the only charity I know which is run entirely by volunteers without any expenses at all. Every penny contributed goes to help fund the school. This includes paying the staff. Over 96,000 children have been taught at the school and Asfau has a record on file for each one.
Our visits to the school left us moved, uplifted and deeply impressed by what we had seen. We can assure you the money the church donates is being put to very good use indeed.
We were accompanied to Ethiopia by our daughter, Rachel, and her husband Gez. Gez took a video of the school and we hope to show this, perhaps in the crypt one Sunday morning after church. We will also be happy to answer questions any of you may have.
Anyone wishing to make a personal donation can do so by writing to Tim Kinahan at the address above for information.
A Return to Ethiopia
John Hester