Breakfast for poor school children campaign

Some of the consecuenses of not having a breakfast are, lack of concentration, tiredness, bad mood and all of these can be overcome by a right amount of glucose which can be provided by a good basic breakfast. All of these things are evidently made worse by an underlying malnutrition.

BREAKFAST IS THE MOST IMPORTANT MEAL OF THE DAY.
 
For as little as 250€ a month we can provide 72 children between the ages of 3 and 6 in the Akaki Mengist school in Ethiopia with a breakfast (bread and milk) and we can cover the salary of the staff to run this program.

If you would like to help please let us know at mediterranea.ong@gmail.com and become a member.

It is not true that most African children are lactose intolerant it is just that their parents can not pay for the milk.

Abugida School: Slide Show (2011)

A new slide show of Abugida ! Thank you Olga, Beto and Jaime.

ABUGIDA IN EHIOPIA

www.youtube.com

Photos taken by  Olga Martínez Valebona during September, October and November 2011 in Ethiopia.

Ghana Physiotherapy program continues.

Today a meeting was held in the UIB (Balearic Islands University) with the team running the UIB-Mediterranea NGO Physiotherapy program.  Since July last year  we have sent 7 Physiotherapists to the Dangme East hospital in Ada Ghana where they have treated people and where they have introduced physiotherapy as yet another service the hospital can offer to the population it looks after. In the near future a team of 3 or 4 staff from the university will travel to Ghana to put in to effect a training program in conjunction with the Physiotherapy faculty in Accra.
As those of you, who have followed Mediterraneas programs over the last few years, will recall, we sent a container full of equipment to set up the physiotherapy department in the hospital.
We are very pleased to say that the university has joined Mediterrnea officially in this project and is helping to fund it.

Mallorca under the crisis

Our Mallorca 4th world programs are steaming ahead, and even though we are now active on various fronts we get the impression that we are just touching the tip of the iceberg.

The crisis is hitting Spain hard and Mallorca is not spared from the onslaught.

Mediterranea at present is acting on the following fronts in Mallorca:-

Palmanova: where we help feed and dress 400 people and where we help educate adults.
Palma: where we provide Dignipacs, clothing and food for a population of 300 roofless people.
Sa Pobla: where we  feed and dress 79 poor children (ages 0--16) who were under weight and undernourished due to the very difficult financial situation of their families.
Mallorca: we are refurbishing and preparing computers that will be distributed in centers where underprivileged children are looked after. Computer know how is a vital part of present day education and so providing children with access to computers helps give them a better future. If you happen to have a computer you do not need we can give it a good and productive future.
Cooperation with sister organizations: we donate medical supplies and clothing to other local NGO/Charities that are working in Mallorca.

We are open to suggestions. If you identify a problem that you feel Mediterranea might be able to help in please feel free to let us know.

Dignirepair teams in Ethiopia.

As you may know, during the months of January and February, 8 intrepid Med volunteers travelled out to the blind school in Sebeta. Our mission? To carry out essential repairs and maintenance to the school infrastructure and thereby improve the daily lives of all the children under the school’s care.

Once our flights were booked and vaccinations taken care of, we had to carefully work out how best to allocate our precious luggage allowance. We were able to carry out a large number of donated items, such as medical supplies, clothing & toys, as well as some vital tools which we’d need for our jobs on the ground.

Although the teams had some idea of the types of tasks required, on our first day the school’s director told us her top priority: the school’s water tank. For the previous two years it had been leaking badly, needing constant supervision, with the school running out of water most evenings.

Team One took on the challenge of replacing the leaking tank with a spare, but needed to first design and build a new base and find a crane to lift it all into place. It was exactly these sort of challenges that made the tasks so rewarding and the DigniFix project such a unique and fascinating way to see a culture and country. The enthusiasm and energy which the projects generated meant that we had lots of help from local people, especially during the day of gesticulation and camaraderie which saw the new tank lifted into place.

With the tank installed, we set about repairing leaks in the rest of the water system, so that Team Two would be able to move on with the toilets and bathrooms in the children’s dormitories. The state of the facilities that the children had been living with was truly shocking, with many toilets overflowing and most taps and showers not functioning. By the time the Dignifix Teams left Sebeta, 95% of all toilets, sinks & showers had been repaired or replaced and the majority of the water heaters were working.

We also carried out repairs to the school Medical Clinic & kitchens. The clinic lacked any running water, and the kitchen was so poorly ventilated that it filled with wood smoke every day. The electrical systems in both were terrifying, and totally unreliable. The Teams managed to restore hot & cold water to the clinic, install an extractor fan in the kitchen and repair & make safe the electrics.

For all of us volunteers Ethiopia was a giant culture shock, with many of us first timers in sub-Saharan Africa. The opportunities and personal involvement that the Dignifix project gave us, meant that we experienced the country in a unique and truly special way. We got the chance to meet some fantastic and very friendly people. To be working together attempting to solve difficult problems across cultural divides was a wonderful, if sometimes frustrating, experience.

The people we met, who we tried to help and who had much to teach us, were always open and welcoming, and ready with a smile. Ethiopia is a fascinating and optimistic country. Whatever the two teams achieved, there is so much more to do, the work is ongoing and the needs are many.

The DigniFix project has started well and means to go on…..

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.