Touring Woiny’s Many Projects

On Tuesday we traveled back to the Entoto area to visit some of the children that HFC sponsors with food, clothing and medical care. We also brought gifts to one of the families being sponsored by a close friend of mine in Wilkes-Barre. The densely packed homes are built of eucalyptus branches, mud and dung, and are covered with a sheet metal roof. The walls are lined with newspaper and the entire home is usually about 10 feet square. The one we visited had only a small bed for the parents and the young boy, a small kettle on the floor and about 20 nails on the walls holding plastic bags of their few belongings.

The pictures say more than words about the impact the gifts made on the sponsored mother and child.

Yesterday two Canadian donors came to visit Hope For Children, and this provided the perfect opportunity for Woiny to show them and us some of her many projects. We began at the House of Hope, the hospice that Woiny has founded for extremely sick members of the community who have AIDS, tuberculosis or are HIV+. Most of them come from the Entoto area.

The House of Hope houses 8 people at a time and while they are there, they receive medical care, nutritious food, vitamins and lots of time to rest. If they live, and most do, they are usually ready to leave after 2 months.

We also visited one of HFC’s group homes. In this one, 7 orphaned children of various ages live with two house mothers to form a warm and loving family.

The group homes are simple, but immaculate and brightly decorated. In the small courtyard, the household grows vegetables, herbs and flowers. Not an inch of ground is wasted.


Our final stop, and one that is very dear to me, was the Lafto Play Therapy Center.

Believe it or not, this is the only psychology center in Ethiopia, and although it contains just three small therapy rooms and an office, people are coming to visit it from all over to learn how to start their own center. There is also a large courtyard where Woiny gives trainings to hundreds of parents, teachers and community members on many areas of psychological care and parenting.

Tomorrow is the beginning of our three-day EMDR Training. We have been working towards this day for more than 6 months and I cannot believe everything has finally come together for it.

Dorothy