We are about to take a giant step
forward, of the kind that fills you with joy and hope. Because we are now
certain we shall have an ophthalmologist for Sebeta, in fact a children’s
ophthalmologist. And not just an eye doctor but also an eye nurse who will be
going out with him at the end of October. They will examine the 340 children at
Sebeta to see how some of them can be helped by surgery, glasses or poor-vision
aids.
The three Messi room monitors will
thus be able to teach reading and writing in Oromiya to those children, who
aided in this way will be able to see, so that they will not have to go out
into the world at the age of 17 knowing only Braille.
Apart from this giant step and
with a view to improving the very difficult living conditions of the Sebeta
children we are taking a number of smaller steps: we are buying sheets (at the
moment they sleep directly on filthy mattresses) and we are thinking about
hiring laundresses (if they let us) to wash these sheets and the children’s
clothes. We have already improved things by mending the toilets and replacing
the broken windows.
We have a huge task on our hands turning round this school
which has been virtually abandoned by God and man for the last 30 years. The
carers don’t look after them, the cleaners don’t clean, the Head master doesn’t
seem to be in charge and there’s a statutory nurse who’s never been to the huts
where the children live. A bleak picture, but we’re not put off by the
challenges, quite the opposite.
Photos: the daily life of the
children in their huts
At Mediterranea we are in favour
of showing happy photographs, photographs of our achievements, but sometimes we
have to show you the other side of things. If we were not helping them we would
never show you this darker side, since we are totally opposed to showing the
harsh reality just to raise money in situations where we are not helping
directly.
