Our Blog
Here you'll find our stories, thoughts and successes since we began in 2011. Enjoy.
This is Beckelech Berata. She is 40 years old and has had a severe prolapse for five months. She has four children and was brought to Soddo Christian Hospital by her husband. Thank you for helping her!
Dalibe Sigamo is 60 years old and has suffered from a prolapse uterus for three years. She has delivered nine children and five are still living. You have made a big difference in her life!
Say hello to Miserach Bate from Bucama. She had suffered from prolapse for three years and was anxious to have it surgically corrected. Thank you for helping her!
Zewuditu Zafe is a mom who has delivered six children and, unfortunately, only four are living. She has had a prolapse for a year and is so glad to have her surgery.
This is Wudinesh Maja, also from Bucama. She is a mom of eight who has had a prolapsed uterus for four years. We are so grateful to our donors for helping us to make such a great difference in her life.
This is Endashe Wajage, a widow who has delivered nine children, five of whom are living. She has had prolapse for 6 years and now she is on the road to wellness. We are so grateful to our sponsors.
This is Tayome Godilo. She has had prolapse for 13 years and is a widow who has been pregnant eight times and delivered 7 children. Thank you for helping her!
This is Maskale Chonda. She is married and has delivered seven children, five of whom are living. She has suffered from prolapse for three years. Because of our wonderful MWAHFE donors, Maskale is on her way to health again!
This is Gaule Gasho, a widow who has delivered six children. She has suffered with prolapse for three years. She underwent a hysterectomy and as well as anterior and posterior repair sponsored by MWAHFE.
Mamite Dopiso is also a widow and also suffered from prolapse for three years. She had a large cystocoele and rectocoele. She underwent anterior and posterior repair. She has delivered four children and two are living.
Say hello to Barare Fathamo, also a widow. She has been pregnant seven times and has five living children. She underwent a Le Fort Colpocleisis she had suffered from prolapse for two years .
This young woman is Ayelech Shimale. She is married and has delivered eight children. All of her children are living and the youngest is seven. She has suffered with prolapse for one year. She does not want anymore! She will have a vaginal hysterectomy and anterior and posterior repair sponsored by MWAHFE.
Please meet Damore Dangamo who has delivered 10 children and seven are still living. She has suffered from prolapse for three years. She is from Kido which is far from Soddo. She also was noted to have a large ovarian cyst which was able to be removed. Thanks for helping restore her dignity!
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So while it may seem like “just” soccer, it’s also about a lot more.”
by Megan Stacey
For a Canadian kid, playing soccer seems pretty simple. In the community we just visited in eastern Ethiopia, it’s something much bigger.
We’re in Harar, in the eastern part of the country, and home to our two sponsored soccer teams. It’s a newer project for us, and it was our first time meeting these powerhouse girls and their coaches.
Yesterday we watched as teen girls – and some of their family members – cried after losing a Saturday morning soccer game. And it was our best day on the trip so far.
There are fifty incredible young women on two all-female soccer teams, and not only are they amazing soccer players, they’re kind and ambitious and resilient people, too.
These girls are facing incredible odds.
Many of them come from families and communities where there isn’t enough to eat.
Some are trying to bring in income to help sustain their parents and siblings without foregoing their own education and soccer dreams.
A few of the kids on these teams don’t even have homes. Today we visited with a family that lives under an abandoned truck on the side of the road. There are two soccer-playing daughters in that family, and another two girls that spent their days there because they have nowhere else to go.
So while it may seem like “just” soccer, it’s also about a lot more.
“Soccer gives a break for all of us,” said Melat Melion, a 13-year-old player from Harar. When we spoke with Melat and asked why she likes soccer, she talked about the feeling of love and unity and cooperation that she feels as part of a team.
Melat wants to be a doctor when she grows up. But she also has dreams of playing soccer at a higher level.
Female sports teams, especially for young people, aren’t a given in Ethiopia. When we watched the teams face off in a Saturday morning tournament, I wondered if I was making too much out of the female empowerment angle.
But the girls felt it too.
“We showed everyone that what the boys can do, the girls can do too,” said 13-year-old Bemnit Adisu.
We saw such determination and commitment and feistiness from our teams (I guess this may explain all the tears from the losing team). They were absolutely devastated. Even the brother of one player sat in the stands bawling. (By the way, we resisted the Canadian tendency to just bring two trophies and declare them both winners, but we did tell the girls on the yellow team how well they played!!)
Watching the girls celebrate their victory was something else. After an appropriate amount of shrieking and cheering and kissing the trophy, the entire team ran running off the field and out the stadium gates, singing and pumping the trophy overhead.
We were later told they ran their celebration onto the main street to show off the win and the hardware.
There was a quieter success that struck me just as hard. As the girls battled it out all morning, there were boys of all ages sitting on the sidelines and in the stands watching the game and screaming their heads off.
I asked Tsehinashe Mitku, another 13-year-old player, whether she noticed or cared about all those male spectators – the ones who are usually on the field.
“When we saw the boys watching, we felt there is no difference between boys and girls,” she said.
In a world where little girls grow up watching men who are given the chance to wear the national flag on their chest or the opportunity to turn a love of sports into a career, seeing our girls spill out onto the field as their community cheered them on seemed like a pretty big win.
Please meet Almaz Toma, a married woman from Bucama. She has six children and has been suffering from a large cystocoele and rectocoele for the past nine months. She is so grateful for your help in sponsoring her surgery.
This is Lantore Guracha who has four children. She has been very anxious to have her prolapse repaired as she has been suffering for four years. Thank you for helping her!
Say hello to Ezera Enga who has one child. She has had third-degree prolapse for three years and is so happy to have had her surgery sponsored by MWAHFE.
Say hello to Astir Lire, a married woman from Hosanna. She had been pregnant nine times and seven of her children are living. She had had severe prolapse for three years and has now successfully undergone surgery!
Since Dr. Mark was taking pictures of Astir, her husband asked if he would take a picture of both them together. So cute! Thanks for making such a huge difference in this family’s life.
Please meet Belaynesh Bekalu from Bucama. She has been pregnant eight times and delivered seven children all of whom are living at this time. She is separated from her husband and has had prolapse for five years. She is grateful to have this problem taken care of. Thanks for helping her!
We would like to introduce to you Hogore Hankamo, an 80-year-old widow who has suffered from prolapse for five years. She is from Hosanna and has nine children. She is very, very grateful to have her surgery.
This is Bekelech Gensa, a widow who has had severe prolapse for one year. She has delivered six children but sadly, none are still living. She is so relieved to have had her surgery sponsored by MWAHFE.
This is Tadelech Tensa, a mom of seven children who has had severe prolapse for 7 years. She had a repair for this condition at another hospital five years ago but it was not successful. She is very grateful to Dr. Mark and the team at Soddo Christian Hospital and for being helped by our generous donors!
This is Adanech Gedebo, a widow with two children. She has had prolapse for seven years. She had been seen at the hospital a month earlier but had pneumonia and could not be operated on at that time. She is better now and is thrilled to have had her surgery!
