The First Ethiopian Braillin

Firstly we shall tell you the story of the Braillin doll as a tribute to its creator Virginia Araceli Perez de Vallejo, a teacher from the province of Corrientes in Argentina.  She is one of these anonymous heroines who invent great things for humanity.

Virginia is a teacher at the Corrientes Special School No.26 for the blind and visually impaired.  By squeezing the six very large buttons on the chest of Braillin, children who have difficulty to see can learn all the possible combinations of the Braille alphabet.  This toy, slightly modified, was first presented to the world by ONCE (National Organisation for the Blind in Spain).  Braillin became the first global initiative to teach Braille through play.  In 2006 Braillin was the mascot for the Spanish Paralympics team.

So far so good, but the sad twist in the tale is that Braillin has never made it into the schools of Argentina because of a lack of money to commercialise and distribute it in the country.

In Mediterranea, having written to Virginia to ask for her permission and advice, we are going to make our own Ethiopian Braillin and Braillina dolls.  We already have a group of very skilled ladies who have committed to produce the dolls for the blind children of Akaki Mengist School.  At the moment there are 17 such children at the school but that number is set to change when we have built the new classrooms.

For the moment and while we await the birth of the Ethiopian Braillin dolls we are sending them play based teaching material from Spain.  We had wanted to buy a lot more but the prices of these educational toys are high and those labelled as specially for the disabled even higher.  For this reason we are trying to make what we can by handicraft.  In Ethiopia one can find books in Braille in English and Amharic, Braille material and Perkins Braillers, which are Braille typewriters.  We are going to subsidise the purchase of these items, all of which are essential for the blind.

To start with though and bearing in mind that these children have never been taught, they will have to practice the system of Braille using eggcups and small balls.  The system consists of cells of six points in relief, organised as a matrix of 3 lines and 2 columns, that conventionally are numbered from top to bottom and left to right, as shown in the photo.  For this reason the eggcups and balls will be very useful and when their Braillin dolls arrive (with our next trip in April) they will be even more motivated to learn.

Hello to All Followers of Mediterranea.

We’d like to tell you our plans for the coming year:

We want to dedicate ourselves more to the disabled children of Ethiopia.  It is a sector of the child population, which is incredibly vulnerable, children who have virtually no present or future.

Sami, the education delegate of the Akaki kebele (neighbourhood), who as you know is blind, is bringing blind children, who are normally shut in their homes, to school.  He also brings children with mental disability.  These are children who are permanently locked up and many times tied up in their homes because their families have to go to work and don’t have any other way of avoiding that they endanger themselves.

At the Akaki Mengist school there are only two classes for these children.  So we need to build more classrooms.  To begin with we had thought that one day we could construct a completely new school, but Akaki Mengist has offered us land to construct more classrooms for the blind and deaf children.  This option is cheaper and has the advantage that the classrooms will be in a school that is already up and running.  The physically disabled will be able to work in the vegetable garden, which will be made bigger.

We also want to fulfil another dream: the creation of a kindergarten for blind babies.  This will be at Abugida, at the entrance to the school.

We have achieved much in the four years that we have been in Ethiopia.  The challenges have been big but so have the achievements.  We want to continue doing things in Ethiopia.  The people need us and there is much more work that needs doing.  The sub city of Akaki continue proposing us more pre and infant schools but we cannot take on any of these projects if we don’t increase our number of members.  We proposed to the head of the sub city that he too becomes a member of Mediterranea… a little humour never comes over badly.

In summary, followers of Mediterranea, we start 2011 with much motivation, and don’t want to forget to say thank you for being there and thank you all for allowing us to do what are doing.  Hopefully the family of Mediterranea will continue growing and allow us to do even more.

A New Year and Life a Little Better

At last we have started to provide breakfast for the 198 children of the Biru Tesfa Primary School in Akaki, Ethiopia.  The breakfast is composed of bread, egg and milk, on other days rice and other ingredients.  This is an important contribution to the dietary needs of these children who eat nothing or very little else throughout the rest of the day.  For this reason they call our breakfast, lunch.

Next month Barry, our volunteer builder, will travel to the school.  He will produce a budget for the repairs that are needed and then start work immediately.  As you can see from the photos the children have started classes with cracks in the walls, broken windows…it is not a safe environment for them and for this reason we shall try to make repairs as soon as we can.  Mediterranea will pay for the materials and the parents will provide the manual labour.

Counting the children of Biru Tesfa, of Fitawrari and Abugida we are now feeding 686 children in Ethiopia.  For us it is not merely caring but and investment for the future.

More Glasses!

Over the Christmas holiday’s supporters of Mediterranea have delivered glasses to: Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, India, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Guinea.  Shortly there will be a shipment to Burkina Faso.  Thank you to everyone who helped us with this programme and by doing so have helped to change the lives of all those people in all those countries who have so little.  It is incredible what can be achieved with only the smallest effort.

A Small Light at the End of the Tunnel

This Christmas we received some good news: at last it seems that we have found a substitute mother for a child at Abugida who is on the point of becoming orphaned.  This little boy of six only has his mother and she, tragically is gravely ill having AIDS and terminal breast cancer.

The future of a child in Ethiopia and particularly of this age is very uncertain if left alone.  The most likely outcome being that he would increase by one the number of children living in the streets.  From one day to the next passing from the effective warmth of his home and the security of the school to a most horrible scenario.

We have been trying for a long time to find a family from Abugida who in exchange for a monthly payment would agree to be the child’s substitute family.  But if they don’t know the children from birth they won’t accept them, not even with the monthly payment.  This situation has been causing us anguish since shortly after starting with Abugida.

Now there is a small light at the end of the tunnel with this first lady, who has agreed to become a substitute mother.  The procedure that we have decided on for such cases is as follows: when the mother is very ill the substitute mother starts to care for her and take charge of the child, washing the clothes, cooking and accompanying the child to school.  The child and the mother slowly become accustomed to the new mother.  In this way we believe that it is less painful for the mother and beneficial for the child who gradually becomes accustomed to the new mother figure.

Up until now the sponsored children who live with adoptive families are children who have lived with these families since they were very small.  This will be the first child to join a family at a more advanced age.  We hope that it will go well.  To these substitute mothers that will have charge of a child without having known them since very young we shall pay 500 birrs a month.  Bearing in mind that the child will have breakfast, lunch and tea at the school from Monday to Friday we believe that this amount will be sufficient and will allow them to start their life together.

Our level of involvement in Abugida means that we know all of the cases and all of the problems that arise.  What was a school with x children has been converted into a school where every mother, father, grandparent is known and of course each boy and girl, boys and girls each one of which is a treasure and a challenge for a better life.

It is a big responsibility that we have taken on, a big commitment.  It would be much easier for us, emotionally speaking if Abugida had continued being a school of x children…but this is what happens when you get to know the people.

Sometimes it just can't be.

We met Z four years ago when we first started in Abugida.  She is a girl who had everything but the illness that killed her husband and that is slowly killing her has radically changed her life.  She had to return to Akaki to live with her family who, because of her illness, discriminated against her and made her live in the garden.

Z is the mother of E, a precious little girl, who is intelligent, sweet and mature beyond her years.  E was one of our first children in Abugida and is now at Fitawrari school.

After some time Z left her family and started a life of prostitution, prostituting herself for insignificant amounts of money.  Once a month she returned to the school to see her daughter.  Mother and daughter adore each other.

We offered Z a position in Abugida and she worked with us for over four years.  It was a hard fight to win her that position, as they didn’t want anyone who was HIV+ working there, she was the first.  During her time at the school she had her ups and downs including a mental breakdown for which she took medication.  During our last trip to the school she told us that she would like to continue with her studies.  We personally took charge of her studies, we wanted with all our hearts that she would continue moving forward and build a new life.

But Z left her studies, she left Abugida without saying a word and we don’t know where she is now.  Luckily E is staying with her aunt. As Z will not be able to return to work in Abugida we want to arrange a sponsorship to support her daughter.

E is one of four children that we have for sponsorship.  The others have all lived similarly sad stories and are on the border of survival.  The sponsorships can bring about a very important change in the life of these children.  They are the poorest of the poor.  To sponsor is to give life, a new life to a child that has nothing.  It is also a commitment to the child and to the family that will look after the child.

If you would like to sponsor one of the four children then please write to us at apadrinamediterranea@gmail.com

There are currently 44 children sponsored through Mediterranea.