David, Gina, and Danielle Gibbie, General Manager of one of our major funders, D. Keith MacDonald Foundation, recently returned from Ethiopia. The state of emergency restricted communications and some road travel; however, we were able to participate in the official grand openings of our two new schools, Azena and Abichikili, as well as visit our first school at Sebatamit. We felt incredibly rewarded by the happiness of students, teachers, parents, and administration alike at all of the schools and the apparent success of the teacher training and water and sanitation workshops at Sebatamit. We thank our donors from Whitehorse, Edmonton, Toronto and Calgary for your support in enabling such life changing opportunities for Ethiopians.

Yehalem, our Executive Director, recently traveled to the Amhara region to assess progress on the new Azena and Abichikili schools.  Construction on both is advancing well and they will be fully complete in August and ready for use well before the beginning of the academic year on September 28. The education department is responsible for assigning staff to the new schools and they have now almost finished, this after consultation with, and review of candidates by, Yehalem. Books have also been selected and ordered for the schools and plans are underway to make drinking water available.