NEW PROJECT

Mediterránea believes that in addition to education children should have access to sport and play, in order to develop their full potential. Very few state schools in Ethiopia have small playgrounds for children and we are not aware of any open spaces of this kind which are free of charge to the public.
Akaki does not have a public children’s playground, nor are there any areas for children and young people to play sport which is hard to believe as they are almost all crazy about football.
The district council of Akaki is allowing us to use some land to build a sports and recreational park in Akaki. We need ideas and volunteers.
The works would start around October time once the rainy season is over. We aim to use as many local materials as possible along with local craftsmen to build a place for the whole community; somewhere for schools to go on trips out or simply a place for all children to play.
The photo is of a playground in an underprivileged area of Australia and represents one of the 10 most imaginative playgrounds in the world, the St. Kilda Adventure Playground.
It is a hidden gem amidst the high-rise buildings on the outskirts of a cosmopolitan area. It was designed for underprivileged families so that their children have a safe place to play. The locals call it their “back yard recreation area” as it’s such a delightful place where they feel at home.

If you are interested in helping with this project in any way, please email mediterranea.ong@gmail.com

AKAKI MENGIST SCHOOL , ETHIOPIA

This is the first picture of the preschool children at the Akaki Mengist School who will be our next target within our large “Akaki Schools” project.
These 74 children will receive breakfast of bread and milk from us, just like the children in the other schools in Akaki with which we collaborate (Fitawrari, where we feed 450 children lunch and/or breakfast), the Biru Tesfa infant school with 190 children and Abugida, the infant school which is fully maintained exclusively by us (including salaries) with 200 children.
As a wise person once said: "If you want to set up or help a school in Africa start with the dining room".
The children under 5 are the most vulnerable to the risks of malnutrition as they are at an essential stage of growth and development and if they are malnourished they are more prone to disease, so we keep them as healthy as possible by providing them with food. We have good evidence of this in the children at Abugida, whose medical expenses are minimal due to their excellent state of nutrition.
Malnutrition affects the immune system which can cause more frequent, prolonged and serious infections. These infections aggravate the nutritional state of the child even more and a vicious circle is established which is difficult to break and gets worse as time goes on. An undernourished child faces a higher risk of contracting chronic diseases in adulthood.
As well as affecting health, malnutrition also plays a part in the child’s ability to learn, retain and remember, together with their intelligence quotient which will eventually determine their future as an adult.
Let’s break the vicious circle of infant malnutrition as much as we possibly can. The more we are, the more children we can feed in Mallorca and Ethiopía.
Photo dated according to Ethiopian calendar.

AT THE FITAWARI SCHOOL

Yesterday Phil, one of our volunteers, visited the Fitawrari School in Akaki where we have installed what was the first dining room in a state school.
It currently provides breakfast and lunch for 175 children and breakfast for 275 infants. The 175 children have been selected from among the most needy because they are orphans, HIV positive or live in conditions of extreme poverty.

They are currently fasting during Lent but in spite of this they are being well fed as they are substituting animal proteins with vegetable proteins and they can continue drinking milk if they wish.

Comillas University, Madrid.

On the 24th of March we presented the Psychomotricity program we have developed for the visually impaired children and adolescents in the Sebeta school in Ethiopia, in the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Psychopraxis center in the Comillas univeristy in  Madrid. 

Psychomotor activity and stimulation is of vital importance mainly because it favors the the development of the different areas relating to diverse functions/activities, such as the motor, the congitive, the effection-emotional, the social, the personal autonomy, speaking and  communication, and  all are  fundamental for the development of basic learning skills, autonomy and personal identity.
Cognitively, vision has a leading role in all that concerns orientation and the structuring of the field of action, all of which influence decisively in the precision of movement and its speed.


The development of awareness of the environment of the visually impaired child is more difficult as the child has no direct perception of things. The visually impaired child's notion of the visual field is acquired through a succession of  events and phenomena that through tactile input supplants the visual orientation.


But what happens when we go over to Ethiopia to put in motion a psychomotricity program for blind children? 
Theory falls in to a second plane and all our accumulated professional experience and our developmental experience as children become the foundations of the project.
The careful observation of the people, their customs and our ability to adapt to them applying respect, will facilitate the putting in to effect the program which must take in to account the real necessities of the population  and which will favor the independence of the  program which must be eventually run by local staff.

Good news from Ethiopia

Zulfan, one of the children in our kindergarten in Abugida  with congenital Strabismus is doing very well since she joined the school last summer.   

Zulfan will eventually have perfect eyesight and her eyes will  look beautiful !