Sr Winifred Doherty
Good Shepherd Sisters
Ethiopia
Overall 2006 was a successful year with
quality results being obtained through building
staff capacity. This was achieved in three ways
- staff workshops, employing two extra
professional staff - an administrator for the
school sponsorship program and a nurse to attend
and counsel parents and children living with
HIV.
The
Tesfa Credit and Saving Association is going
very well - the mid term evaluation was
completed in June and a successful audit was
conducted by the Government in December 2006.
This initiative is part of "Sharing Fair", the
Good Shepherd Sisters for economic justice,
which aims to market crafted items made by women
in developing countries whose circumstances have
brought them in contact with the Sisters of the
Good Shepherd.
Most
often these women or girls are responsible for
family support and they must earn money by any
means - even the most unsavoury or undignified.
Alternatives are scarce and eagerly sought, but
real cash must be available. In some countries,
education is only available to the privileged
few, often not to girls, and requires financial
aid made possible by income-generating projects
such as Sharing Fair.
In the mid term evaluations of Tesfa Association
the dependency syndrome was detected in the
Association’s dependency on the staff of the
Centre. Finding ways to move the children
program from being centre based to being ‘owned’
by the community is proving to be difficult but
intensive capacity building of parents
committees is underway to tackle the problem.
Further an evaluation of the children’s program
will be undertaken to assess its strengths and
weaknesses in April 2007.