Why do We Care Anyway?

As you may already know, Kids Helping Needy Kids facilitates sponsorships. But this is only one of our projects to help children in Ethiopia. We also support 63 orphans in a part of the country called Debre Libanos. During our visit in 2006, we asked the children what they needed, and they replied food, clothes, and shoes- in that order. Their humble requests are beyond reasonable; these are necessities that any living being should have access to, especially food!

God-willing, we will return to Ethiopia in summer 2009. Our goal for next summer is to try to make this orphanage self-sufficient when it comes to food- the first item on their list. We are thinking of starting a vegetable garden of simple crops that will grow in the conditions given. Tending to the garden is a responsibilty everyone can be given and the rewards will be tasty. Gardening together will foster a sense of both community and accomplishment.

An outdoor bread oven would be another great asset to the orphanage. Once given instruction and practice baking, the older children can prepare dozens of loaves of bread per day and no child would go to bed hungry. As you may have seen our photos of the children there, most of them are skinny and short for their respective ages. Look at the picture posted here on our blog. In such places where adequate food and nutrition are hard to come by, the sight of undernourished children is not uncommon. A great source of protein is peanut butter, a staple condiment in many American households. In Ethiopia, peanut butter on bread would fill bellies with minimum cost or preparation.

A water well outfitted with a filter would also be ideal for promoting healthier living at the Debre Libanos orhanage. Clean water is another fact of life that we here in the U.S. take for granted. Immediate access to drinkable water would be nothing short of a miracle there.

These are just a few of the ideas that Kids Helping Needy Kids has for improving the overall quality of life for the children at the Debre Libanos orphage. Stay tuned for updates on our ideas for next summer's projects. We'd love to hear from you too. Please leave comments with your ideas or suugestions.