Girls Gotta Run: What Betelhem Learned

“I learned that every human is equal. Women are even to men.”

Think about the power of a program that helps 14-year-old Betelhem Tegegn learn she is valuable, strong and equal to her male peers.

That’s Girls Gotta Run.

We interviewed Betelhem during our last trip when she had just started the three-year athletic scholarship program. Girls Gotta Run uses running – a big source of national pride in Ethiopia – to give young women agency, a network of friends and peers, school tuition, uniforms and healthy food.

It’s been amazing to see the development of the young ladies in this program. Through training sessions, team meals, and life skills, they begin to dream.

The girls want to go on to high school, preparatory school, and university or college.

Betelhem wants to take management classes in the future.

Every time we interview athletic scholars at the Abba Pascal School for Girls, it becomes apparent that the Girls Gotta Run Foundation is incredibly successful at building leadership skills and social connections among young women.

You hear these elementary and high school students begin to dream.

“Before, people were thinking men were better than women. Women were doing inside tasks,” Tegegn told us when we asked about how her outlook changed after joining the athletic scholarship program.

She’s now in her third year in the program. Mothers with a Heart sponsors 45 girls in this program, including 26 in the traditional three-year Girls Gotta Run scholarship and 19 more than are moving on to preparatory school.

Thank you for empowering girls like Betelhem.

For more information about Girls Gotta Run: https://www.motherswithaheartforethiopia.com/girls-gotta-run

What We Ate Wednesday: Ethiopia Edition

A big part of any culture is food, and Ethiopian food is one of the most distinct and unique cuisines in Africa!

The core of the diet centres around dishes with a stew-like consistency, which are served family-style on top of a spongy flatbread called injera.

This spread is a little more elaborate than you normally see. Typically there is no bread or other garnishes - the stews are just dumped directly onto the injera. More rolls of injera are served on the side, however, which individuals can spread out on their own plate.

People sharing a meal will rip off pieces of injera and use a few fingers to pinch it around a bite of the different dishes. Many are called wat.

Tibs is very popular, with diced beef or goat meat often cooked with tomatoes and jalapenos. Shiro is another common dish made of chickpea flour and other spices.

Some ingredients we typically enjoy at home are also common in Ethiopia, including rice and pasta.

When we travel to Ethiopia, we typically eat in restaurants that serve both traditional Ethiopian fare and more Western foods that Canadians would recognize, such as pizza and fish and chips. Usually there are some fun surprises, such as canned tuna as a pizza topping!

We are really spoiled in Canada, with so many different foods that aren’t native to our country right at our fingertips in the grocery store aisles. There isn’t always the same availability of fresh foods in Ethiopia, so you have to be prepared that a meal listed on the menu might not actually be available.

A typical view of street vendors in Ethiopia.

It’s not unusual to pick three or four options as you peruse a menu, in case your favourites aren’t possible.

Bread - called dabo - is often served before a meal or alongside your dish with a very spicy dipping sauce, a paste made from hot peppers. It is vibrant, delicious and HOT!

At breakfast, there are lots of eggs, usually some form of sliced bread or buns, and then Ethiopian dishes like firfir, which is small strips of injera that have been mixed with spices and a stew-like dish to soak up all the delicious flavours!

An Ethiopian breakfast - rice, noodle and cabbage dishes, plus firfir in the bottom corner. Coffee on the side, of course.

We found that many restaurants will repurpose last night’s leftovers, producing some interesting - and very delicious - noodle and vegetable dishes at the breakfast buffet. Potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables with noodles or rice is especially common, sometimes even with some beef or other meat.

Sadly, injera is becoming less common in the daily diet of some rural families, because the demand for teff flour to make the spongy bread is driving up prices. Many Ethiopians use a mixture of teff and another type of flour - perhaps sourgum or wheat - to cut down on teff and the cost to produce.

Our Group Home Mom, Mulu, makes her own injera every three days. As soon as she’s done, she mixes up the next batch to allow it time to sit and ferment. The batter is poured on a hot griddle, almost like a huge crepe. See Lisa try her hand at injera-making below after a demonstration by Mulu!

The best snacks are in-season produce like bananas (you’ve never had a banana so flavourful and sweet!), oranges, avocados and mangos. Toasted corn and other dried foods, like seeds, are sold in small packages at all kinds of little shops along the street.

Coffee is a major export and a huge part of the culture. When you visit someone’s house, the hosts immediately want to make you a coffee. But this doesn’t involve flipping on a coffee maker or popping a pod in the Keurig - it’s back to basics.

The coffee ceremony starts by roasting fresh coffee beans over an open fire, grinding them in a mortar and pestle, and then mixing with water in an intricate clay coffee pot called a jebena. Grass is spread on the floor to set the stage for the traditional ceremony, and bread and popcorn are offered alongside. Coffee is strong and served with lots and lots of sugar in small cups.

Shelley, Lisa and Tilahun enjoyed that delicious fruit juice! This was layers of papaya, mango, avocado and strawberry puree.

One of our very favourite Ethiopian treats is a fruit juice layered with avocado, mango, strawberry purees.

We also enjoyed a spectacularly delicious “honey tea” at a new restaurant inside a hotel in Soddo, Ethiopia. The Lewi Restaurant specialty is a layered drink, a hot lemon and ginger tea with a large serving of honey on the bottom. Our amateur detective skills also identified pineapple juice in the mix.

Of course we could never cover this country’s incredible cuisine in just one blog post, but we hope you got a little taste (pun intended!) of Ethiopian food.

Busajo: A Day in the Life

Imagine leaving home at just seven or eight years old, heading to a big city and living alone on the streets. That’s the reality for thousands of children in Ethiopia, who are unprotected, vulnerable, and often exploited.

The Busajo program is a special one because it focuses not on bringing shoes or a few dollars to these kids, but an entire overhaul, a refuge, and a chance to build a better life.

The main building at Busajo, which includes offices, a kitchen, classrooms and living quarters for the children who are coming off the street.

Children accepted into the program stay for a maximum of three years, during which time the staff locate and work with their family and relatives.

It’s all an effort to address the issues that forced the child out of the home in the first place. In many cases, it means helping to shore up or build a home, providing a means of generating income (perhaps an injera maker or an animal that could provide milk or meat), or providing medical or legal assistance to a family.

In the meantime, the children who have been living on the street are rehabilitated at the Busajo campus in Soddo, Ethiopia, re-learning how to go to school, live and work and play with others, and pull their weight in a household.  

One part of the textiles workshop at Busajo. Several young boys are learning to weave beautiful scarves tablecloths and towels.

The children at Busajo experience a radically different life than the one they knew on the streets. And not just because the campus is so beautiful. The walled grounds include a softball field, basketball court, the main building where the children live, eat and do their chores, as well as a new guest house, workshops for job training (bread, bamboo furniture, textiles and soap-making!) and a home for girls, many of whom have been sex trafficked.

All the necessities are provided – food, clothing, shelter, school supplies, a safe place to sleep – and they begin to resume a normal life routine. These former street children learn to cook, clean and keep up a good hygiene regimen.

A classroom for study time or other lessons at Busajo.

The schedule is very strict, and it includes a rotation of chores for each child, as well as hours of homework and study time each day.

The routine is important, because it helps the youngsters stay on track and re-adapt to the activities and values in a family home, rather than the all-out war for survival they may have experienced on the streets. 

Here is a glimpse of the schedule at Busajo:

A DAY IN THE LIFE AT BUSAJO

6:30 a.m. Wake up, get ready, make beds

7 a.m. Breakfast

8 a.m. Go to school, either a government school or a local language school

12 p.m. Home for lunch

1 p.m. An hour of quiet chatting with Busajo staff

2 p.m. Study buddies - an hour of quiet study in pairs (for example, Grade 1 students are paired with Grade 3 students, Grade 2 students with Grade 4, etc)

3 p.m. An hour of solo homework time

4 p.m. Play sports - one day it might be soccer, the next volleyball, the next small games

5 p.m. Shower

7 p.m. Dinner

8 p.m. Study (except on weekends, when the kids gather for an hour of TV time!)

9 p.m. Sleep!

Bucama Strong: Three women, three stories, all connected by prolapse

(Mothers with a Heart for Ethiopia donates money to help women who are suffering from prolapse have a surgery to correct the condition. It’s a life-changing procedure done by two American ob-gyns volunteering their time in Soddo, Ethiopia.

A rural health clinic about 45 minutes away is one of the biggest sources of patients. We were fortunate enough to visit the Bucama Health Centre on our third day in Ethiopia during a trip in October 2019.

Here are three of the stories we heard. We hope the strength and resilience of these incredible women will encourage you to learn more about the prolapse project. )

***

Felakekech, clinic manager

Felakekech is a force. That’s the word that immediately comes to mind when describing this powerhouse woman who helps to run the Bucama health clinic. Like many women, she wears many hats. She greets patients arriving at the hospital. She preps women for their appointments, translates their concerns, and takes information in the examining room alongside the doctors.

Felakekech helps to run the Bucama Health Centre in rural Ethiopia.

She sees the impact of prolapse surgery firsthand.

“You are saving their lives. God is sending you,” she told us.

She knows the realities of daily life for many patients. There is no soap, no running water to keep an infected area clean. There is little support in some families. Women are often confused and scared, not knowing what is happening to their bodies.

But after surgery, “they can live with their husbands, experience new life. They can go to church. They can dance. It’s a happy life,” Felakekech said.

We could see how her own heart was touched by the pain, resilience and strength of the women who are suffering or have suffered from prolapse.

In one particularly poignant interview, she paused while translating and told us how the pain and isolation can overtake women’s lives. One patient, unaware she could find help for her condition, bought a butcher knife with plans to take her own life. She just wanted to end her suffering.

Luckily, there are people like Felakekech working to empower rural Ethiopian women and connect them to lifesaving medical care and attention. Bucama has seen explosive growth in the past few years as the government intensifies its push to have everyone in the region connected with healthcare through twice-yearly checkups.  

Last year, there were 8,500 patient visits projected in the annual plan. But the clinic outpaced its own statistics, with 10,095 visits. 

This year, a whopping 20,427 are expected.

Despite all the work she is doing on the frontlines, Felakekech wouldn’t end our interview without effusive thanks.

“Thank you, the program is changing their lives,” she said of donations from Mothers with a Heart for Ethiopia.

 ***

Dedene, awaiting surgery

When Dedene told Dr. Nate Ross about the prolapse that’s been plaguing her for six years, she began to cry.

“I can’t go to church like this,” she sobbed. “It is smelling.”

Dedene, a rural Ethiopian woman who is a candidate for prolapse surgery.

She’s rail thin.

She walked to the clinic without any shoes. It took hours, partially because of the distance and also because she stopped several times to sit down and gain enough strength to continue. Her heart was beating fast during that journey, she said.

Her husband left her for another woman when he saw the way her uterus, bladder and rectum had pushed their way out of her body, left suspended between her legs.

At church, worshippers in the rows around her move away because of the odour caused by the prolapse, and because she cannot control her urine.

She has three living children but only one lives with her.

Dedene feels so hopeless, she told us it would be better if she would die. “But God is not taking me.”

We are absolutely overjoyed that your donations may help Dedene regain her life through surgery.

We also learned about another simple tool that can be used in prolapse cases.

We knew Dr. Mark was, in some cases, using pessaries – a sort of flexible ring that is inserted into the vagina to hold up the uterus or other organs that have slipped down or out of place. 

It can be a good solution, especially for women with only a minor prolapse or those who wish to have more children. Even severe prolapse cases can be helped by a pessary. And in cases like Dedene’s, where it wasn’t possible to have surgery right away, the pessary can provide much-needed relief, allowing them to sit, stand and walk normally.

Dr. Nate and Dr. Mark also use pessaries in cases where a woman is suffering from ulcers or infections. The ring is covered in estrogen to help get their tissues back into a healthy state and ready for surgery.

Surgery is a more permanent solution, of course, especially for women like Dedene who are past menopause.

We are exceedingly grateful that options exist for woman like Dedene. Thank you for your support to help link these women with the medical care that brings them a new chance at life.

***

Meselech, a surgery success

“Look at me now, this is new life,” she told us, four years after surgery to correct the prolapse that had left her reproductive organs dangling out of her body and made simple daily tasks an impossible feat.

“I am like a newborn baby.” 

Meselech, a woman who had her prolapse corrected by surgery nearly 4 years ago.

We can only imagine the relief Meslech must have felt after her prolapse was corrected by Dr. Mark Karnes, an ob-gyn at Soddo Christian Hospital in Soddo, Ethiopia.  

She had suffered from the condition for four years before she had surgery. 

Her prolapse, a severe case, kept her from going to church, walking to the market, or having sex with her husband.

Her organs had fallen so far they were outside the body, and became infected and ulcerated. When she would walk, she spread her legs as far as possible to keep her inner thighs from rubbing painfully against her uterus, hanging outside her vagina.

When we chatted with Meselech, she was blunt:

“Before surgery, I was crying, always crying. Now that God has helped me, I am happy. Now it is a good life. I can go to church, market. Anywhere I want, I can go,” she told us.

“I am singing, I can dance. I am a new woman,” she went on. 

You can’t argue with those results.

And even better, Meselech has taken it upon herself to educate others in her rural Ethiopian village. This is incredibly unusual, in part because Ethiopian culture is incredibly private. Many woman who suffer from prolapse don’t even tell their families what’s wrong. 

But this mother of six isn’t afraid of stereotypes or stigma.

“I told people at the market, relatives at church. I am teaching people,” she said, telling us that so many mothers with prolapse are still out there confused, isolated and in pain.

“People are asking me ‘how did you do it? What did you do to get well?’ That is my work. My whole life, I will tell people.’” 

Meselech, we salute you. Thank you for using your newfound knowledge to bring new life to your sisters.

Wonderful WRAPS: Meet Tawabech

She was only a teenager when she became the sole breadwinner in her family.

Then, she went back to school.  She was in Grade 2.

Think strength, resilience, fortitude.

That’s Tawabech.

Tawabech, a student and worker at the WRAPS (washable, reusable, affordable pads) project in Soddo, Ethiopia.

Now 22 years old, Tawabech works full-time sewing reusable pads at a Soddo non-profit. She’s still supporting her family, including her mother and three brothers. Her father left the family years ago.

But she’s unstoppable.

Taking classes at night, she’s worked her way into high school. She’s completing Grade 9 and will soon be heading into Grade 10.

“I dropped out of school because we lived in the countryside. My mom was not able to work and we lived so far away,” Tawabech, one of the earliest workers at WRAPS, a program to provide rural Ethiopian girls with washable, reusable, affordable pads.

The product – carefully created in a multi-step assembly line at a Soddo facility – helps keep young women in school when they have their periods, instead of isolated at home using rags or leaves each month.

Joyful is right! These ladies can sure make you LAUGH!

Tawabech has been working there for 5 years. That’s the same amount of time she’s been attending night school to continue her education.

“It has been difficult. I’m not only going to school, I’m also carrying the responsibility for the family,” she said.

The young woman saved up her salary from WRAPS to buy a roof for her mother’s home.

And despite the hardship, Tawabech has a positive outlook.

Allison Karnes, the founder of WRAPS, said she knew Tawabech would be the perfect employee. In fact, she was the very first.

“I wanted people around me that were joyful,” Allison said.

Surgical Success Stories - Belaynesh, Galdame & Byenech (#308 to #310)

Belaynesh is 40 and has six children who are all still living! She’s married and her prolapse returned about one year ago after her previous surgery and it quickly became very severe. She was able to go home as a new woman!

Galdame thinks she is around 50 years old. She had four children and three are still alive. Her prolapse came back just one year after her first surgery so she’s suffered again for the last four years. She was also able to go home a changed woman. She was so so grateful to have her surgery and she had a huge smile on her face before she left to return home to her children.

Byenech is 50 years old. She had eight children but only five have survived. She is married and her husband is a farmer. She’s had her prolapse for the past three years. She had a successful surgery and will be returning home soon to complete her recovery.

Surgical Success Story - Tadelech (#307)

Tadelech has delivered six children and five are still alive. She actually underwent surgery 10 years ago for prolapse at another hospital. Her problem recurred two years ago and she developed severe prolapse. She had her prolapse surgery at Soddo Christian Hospital and now no longer suffers from this condition. Thanks to all of you who have made this possible!

Surgical Success Stories - 6 Surgeries! (#301 to #306)

Eshale is 50 years old. She is married and had eight children, six of whom are still alive. She had suffered from her prolapse for one year and hers was an unusual type that primarily involved the small intestine, called an enterocoele. She is recovering very well now!

Taylake had a very successful surgery. She is 65 years old and had six children, all of whom are still alive. She had her prolapse for more than six years before having it addressed by the doctors.

After a blood transfusion the doctors were able to successfully perform Woyzare’s surgery. She is 40 years old and married. She had eight children and seven are still living. She’s suffered for two years with prolapse and it had even gotten to the point where she was having difficulty walking. She is grateful for the support of our donors!

Elfinesh states that she is 50 but the doctors think that she’s probably closer to 65. She is widowed and had seven children, six of whom are still alive. She is accompanied by her granddaughter. She had very severe prolapse that was bothering her for the past year. The good news is that she is prolapse free and that she was singing during her surgery. She is a very very precious lady!

Aster is 55 and she lives with one of her eight children who are still alive after giving birth to 11. She has her prolapse for the last four years and is now doing well back on the ward.

All states she is 55 years old. She lives with one of her children. She had nine children and six are still alive. She’s suffered from her prolapse for the past year and was so happy and grateful to have her surgery performed today.

Life After Prolapse Surgery: a qualitative study

“I used to have to walk by holding the prolapse; I couldn’t walk like I wanted to. I had a lot of problems. But I’m thankful after the surgery; it was a big change. I had suffered for six years.”

— 32-year-old married woman

We love to support the work that the OBGYNs at Soddo Christian Hospital are doing by raising funds to sponsor surgeries for women who need a uterine prolapse repaired. You can learn all about this project here.

Recently a study was done on the effects of this surgery for women in rural Ethiopia and it came out with some very hopeful findings.

Interested in digging a little deeper into the struggles and triumphs of these women and those who are committed to caring for them? Click the link below to read the full study.

And, of course, you are invited to donate to this project to help even more women in rural Ethiopia.

CELEBRATING 300 SURGERIES!!!

IT'S TIME TO CELEBRATE!! 🥳
Thanks to YOUR generosity, 300 women have had life-changing surgeries to correct their uterine prolapse (UVP). What a joy to see the faces and hear some of the stories of these women. Meet some of them on our blog including patient #300, Abayinesh. ❤️

Abayine - our 300th sponsored surgery recipient - is married and has delivered seven children; five of them are living. She stated she had heard that the surgery was free through Soddo Christian Hospital and that is because of your generosity. She was so thankful because she had suffered from this condition for 13 years!! She underwent surgery and no longer has her prolapse! Thank you to everyone who has helped to make this possible.

This is Abayinesh on her way home from surgery in a new dress that was donated to her. #beautiful (more on that later... stay tuned!)

Abayinesh with the excellent OBGYNs at Soddo Christian Hospital: Dr. Nate (left) and Dr. Mark (right)