Yezelalem Minch

The main reason Jill and I came to Ethiopia was under a UNICEF grant to train community workers and social workers to run children’s groups. This organization is an amazing social services agency that not only does adoption, but many other important in-country social services. We spent the morning with Nesibu, the director and his staff Sam and Yoseph. We planned out our training process for the next 2 days and received important information on the program we are working with. YM works with about 450 children in the community who live in kinship homes. This means their parents have died and they live with grandparents, aunt/uncles, neighbors…There are also many children living with “older” siblings. The siblings are not adults, but care for the younger siblings with extra help from YM. Every Saturday the children come to a feeding program. From 9-12 they do psycho-social activities in groups, and at 12 have a lunch provided by women in one of YM’s programs that train women to work and be self sufficient.

Other programs that YM facilitate include: sponsorship, abstinence education, community recreational activities, health clinics, and many more. The staff work hard. They have a 2 story building with the top for all of the staff (8-10) each has a desk lined against the wall. No walls, no cubicals… all open. They each have a computer and phone. The internet is horribly slow. The stairs are outside to the first level. Half way down there is a sink and a mirror. The bottom level is Nesibu’s office and 2 guest suites that have one bed, one crib and a small bathroom. There is a very small shack with a kitchen in the “driveway” There is a guard who opens the gate when people arrive and a cook who prepares lunch for the staff. They eat outside on benches. The gate opens to a dirt road lines with small shops that are more like a shack with a window where you ask for what you need. These “shops” are very common, lining all the roads in Addis Ababa. Many will sell produce, others tire rims, some snacks. More on the city later…

That morning we had a lesson in African “planning”. We came all the way from the States, (thousands of miles!) specifically for this training. We said we preferred 4 days to train. We made a manual over 100 pages. We sent 2 lengthy schedules they could choose from. We sat down with the group at 9:30 on Monday and they said who do we want to train and on what topics. They asked us what days, how many days… They told us they could give us 2 days. They were very impressed with the manual. They loved the idea of doing activities. They seem genuinely interested in the training, but we realized they had no plans. No one was invited, no one had reserved a place to hold the training… I think about all the work ahead of time we put into things at home. Here it is “no problem”. By the end of the day the staff had a head count of who was coming (all with less than 24 hours notice) and a place to hold the training, tea and lunch for 2 days. Let me just say here: “THIS IS MY KIND OF COUNTRY!” Their casual carefree attitude is doing my soul GOOD! The beauty of it is that they all work hard and get the job done, but there seems to be no stress. My conclusion is “planning = stress” (my staff is not going to be happy about this affirmation… sorry guys),


One of the interesting parts of the day was when we were driving around to find a location for the training and Sam took us to a Country Club/Golf Course. I guess this is the last thing I expected to see in Ethiopia, but was not surprised when I
noticed the lounge area had only Caucasian men smoking in it. Sam said most members are not Ethiopian and if they are they are very important people and wealthy. It was beautiful though… lots of greenery and flowers.