New Year, New Administrator

We have started the new year by hiring Bahru Shikur as the general administrator and supervisor of our projects in Ethiopia.  Bahru has a lot of experience working for foreign NGO's in the area of education and is himself a teacher trainer.  He also has useful managerial and financial experience.

Med's projects in Ethiopia are already large and are growing.  We need a good manager on the ground who can guarantee that our funds and efforts are used to best effect.  As you know financial transparency is one of our mottos.

Bahru speaks and writes excellent English which will certainly help with communication, which have have learnt is essential in trying to manage projects from a distance.  We hope that with this appointment the overall operation of Abugida and our other projects in Ethiopia will become a lot easier and less problematic.

We'd also like to take the opportunity to give our thanks to Cristina, our volunteer auditor who spent the month of December in Ethiopia and who dedicated long hours to putting our accounts there in order.  A thankless job that is however extremely important and quite complicated when the idiosyncrasies of Ethiopia are taken into account.  Cristina is now in charge of all the economic matters in Ethiopia.

I would like to welcome Cristina and Bahru to the Med team.

Queens College Continue their Support of Mediterranea

The Rock-n-Soul Concert is a Success !

The Rock n Soul concert put on in support of Mediterranes by KG Custom Bikes Garage & Services on 17 Dec at their workshop in Poligono Son Oms was a big success.

Over 200 people attended, and they filled many boxes with clothes and food for the homeless of Mallorca.  Over 1000 Euros was also collected on the night.

The event was organised by Nelly Berens and Stefan Gotz of the New Mallorca magazine and by Knut Gruschka of KG Bikes.  Given the success of the event we hope that they will organise other such events in the future to bring more awareness of the work of Mediterranea and to generate more members.

We would like to give our heartfelt thanks to this team and their staff and to the musicians who made the evening such a success.

Talismen of Luck

'Un caganer o caganet' (a child and potty) is a figurine celebrating birth. Traditionally in the Baleares, Cataluna, Valencia and the Canaries it is placed in their cribs at Christmas.  Normally it is hidden in a corner of the crib behind a tree and represents that the 'necessities' also need to be done.  This tradition is fully accepted by the church.

Placing this figure in the crib is meant to bring luck and happiness.

Here we show you our own, handsome, live 'potty figures' of Abugida who will surely bring us luck too.

Wishing you a Happy Christmas

"Don't dream of happiness, make it a reality"

Wishing you a very Happy Christmas from all of the Mediterranea Team.

French School, Palma Supports Med

The French School in Palma have started to support Mediterranea with a campaign to collect unused pairs of glasses.  In the photo two of our volunteers hard at work.