Ethiopia - Projects - Children Believe

Our projects

We work in Africa, Asia and The Americas helping children access the education and resources to dream big

Projects in Africa

We’re based in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia & Ghana

In Ghana
In Burkina Faso
In Ethiopia
Malawi
Rwanda

Increasing productivity and profitability of women-owned small-scale businesses
January 2022 - September 2022

Shea-butter production is the main source of income for 900,000+ women in rural Ghana, and now with this project local businesswomen are learning to improve their efficiency and profitability through training in processing, financial management and more. The 150 project participants will also benefit from group discussions on women’s and girl’s rights to help change perceptions and attitudes within the community about women in business.

Funding partner: Australian High Commission

Learning-Through-Play-Plus project
January 2018 - February 2020

The Learning-Through-Play-Plus project is providing parents and caregivers in three districts with information on encouraging healthy growth and development of their children (aged zero to six). To start, they received a calendar charting a child’s growth, which is helping them learn the importance of engaging and playing with children to foster their cognitive development and mental health. More than 3,000 men, women and children are benefiting from the project, which made it possible to train 90 early childhood development teachers and integrate learnings about healthcare, hygiene, sanitation, gender equality and more into community group settings. What’s more, the project spurred the development of 42 community empowerment centres with materials provided by ChildFund Korea and Children Believe with artisan work, labour and land resources provided locally.

Funding partner: ChildFund Korea

Promoting maternal, newborn, infant and child sustainable health efforts
April 2016 - March 2020

The $7.7-million Promoting Maternal, Newborn, Infant and Child Sustainable Health Efforts (PROMISE) initiative aims to reduce maternal and child mortality in Ghana, Malawi and Rwanda through an integrated approach focusing on health-service delivery and utilization as well as improved nutrition. It promotes respectful and supportive maternity care as well as mother and baby-friendly environments. It also fosters engagement by fathers and ensures supportive supervision for new mothers. The initiative is being implemented through a consortium led by Children Believe in partnership with ADRA Canada and Emmanuel International Canada.

Funding partner: Global Affairs Canada

French translation

Promouvoir les efforts de santé durables pour la mère, le nouveau-né, et l’enfant L’initiative durable de promotion de la santé maternelle, néonatale, infantile et enfant (PROMISE) de 7,7 millions de dollars vise à réduire la mortalité maternelle et infantile au Ghana, au Malawi et au Rwanda grâce à une approche intégrée axée sur la prestation et l’utilisation des services de santé ainsi que sur une meilleure nutrition. Elle favorise des soins de maternité respectueux et favorables, ainsi que des environnements amicaux et familiaux. Elle favorise également l’engagement des pères et assure une supervision de soutien pour les nouvelles mères. L’initiative est mise en œuvre par le biais d’un consortium dirigé par Children Believe en partenariat avec ADRA Canada et Emmanuel International Canada.

Funding partner: Global Affairs Canada

Ghana school bicycle project
July 2018 - March 2019

In rural Ghana, bicycles are an affordable way to get around. Sadly, they’re a luxury in rural communities where children need them to travel to school, which is usually far away. This leads to illiteracy due to high dropout rates and lower school attendance. This project provided 275 schoolchildren in the Northern Region of Ghana with bicycles. The gifts are making it easier for students to get to school on time, and it’s reducing the dropout rate.

Funding partner: ChildFund Korea

ACCESS project
January 2017 - May 2018

The Accelerating Communities’ Capacities for Essential Services and Self-reliance (ACCESS) project was delivered to speed access to clean water and education while also improving sanitation/hygiene, nutrition and livelihood development, especially for women and girls in two communities in the Northern Region of Ghana. More specifically, inadequate schools were improved with the addition of new classrooms; a solar-powered borehole was also built and 50 farmers were trained in dry-season gardening. The project directly benefited more than 1,500 people, including more than 1,000 children.

Funding partner: ChildFund Korea

TRADE
September 2016 - September 2017

In Ghana, access to Free Compulsory Basic Education is a constitutional right. Yet, many Ghanaian children from rural communities don’t attend school due to the cost, failing infrastructure and other challenges — instead many work. That’s why the Transforming Destiny project (TRADE) rescued four children from child labour. Now, they’re enrolled in school and have school uniforms, textbooks, exercise books, pens/pencils, school bags and bicycles to ride to school. The students’ caregivers also have capital and equipment to start and expand their businesses so they can support the children’s education.

Funding partner: ChildFund Korea

Community-driven solutions for preventing the incidence of violence against children
June 2016 - August 2017

During this project, four districts in the Northern Region of Ghana benefited from open discussion about child-protection issues — such as gender-based violence and child marriage. In fact, more than 900 students and members of approximately 20 clubs led peer discussions about the importance of reporting cases of discrimination, violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, especially among girls. Meanwhile, more than 4,600 adults, including 115 community leaders from more than 20 communities, were involved in similar conversations. As a result, child marriages are being prevented and at least one school has set up a taskforce of high-school graduates to monitor child safety.

Funding partner: Unicef

Learning Through Play: strengthening the right to education and development in early childhood
August 2020 - December 2022

Access to quality early-childhood development (ECD) services is a challenge in the rural community of Meguet. The government has made efforts for years, but the need is greater than the available support. Children Believe is working closely with the municipality and the community to improve access to and quality of integrated ECD services in the area for children up to the age of eight. We’re also working with adults to build stronger, safer and more efficient ECD and primary education systems and services that are given equal importance and investment.

At the end of the project, we hope to reach more than 4,500 children, nearly 1,700 parents, more than 60 teachers and more than 240 internally displaced children while also setting up and strengthening seven community-based child-protection groups.

Funding partners: ChildFund Korea

Project to strengthen right to social promotion and birth registration
February 2019 - January 2022

In Burkina Faso, state stats show women are having more than six children each, and more than 60 percent of the population is in their early 20s. So, Children Believe partnered with Educo, Terre des Hommes and Association Burkinabè pour le Bien Être Familial in the Center North, North and Sahel Regions to help address the growth of vulnerable populations. The goals are to promote family planning by training adolescent girls and boys about their sexual and reproductive health and strengthening birth-registration systems, among other issues.

The project will support more than 55 municipalities, 430 schools, 1.2-million children and youth (65 percent girls) and nearly five-million people.

Funding partner: European Union

Kombib Suur Koece: youth participation for inclusive governance in Burkina Faso
January 2020 - December 2021

Seventy-five percent of Burkina Faso’s population is under 35, according to state statistics, leaving many young people susceptible to challenges, such as access to education, violence, unemployment and more. Change is possible through this project, which has already proven successful in other Children Believe offices around the world.

It will help empower 1,000 young leaders, 40 percent of whom are marginalized girls. Fifty local state officials will also be trained in awareness-raising campaigns and advocacy initiatives. This will foster youth participation at local and national levels in three regions (Centre, East and Centre East), so children and youth can learn their rights and help spur positive change.

Funding partner: European Union

Project to improve the civil-registration system in particular births
July 2019 to December 2020

One in three infants don’t have a birth certificate in rural Burkina Faso, according to government reports. This will make it difficult for them to access adequate healthcare and eventually school. So, Children Believe helped make birth registration universal in the Central-North, East and Central East regions of Burkina Faso by sharing why it’s important to get a birth certificate when a child is born. We also made services more accessible, connecting moms who give birth at home with local networks to report statistical birth data. We also supported civil registrars, so they’re better equipped to issue certificates.

This project supported 90 percent of newborns in the target areas, more than 2,250 villages, more than 5,190 community health workers, more than 430 health workers and more than 20 community child-protection network officers, among others.

Funding partner: UNICEF

Provision of prevention-and-protection services to children affected by the country’s humanitarian crisis
June 2019 - November 2020

This project supported children who lost one parent (or more) or who suffered psychological disorders due to armed conflict by radical groups, which has displaced more than one-million people. Psycho-social and psychological care was provided as well as cash transfers and emergency kits to families of the most vulnerable children. We spurred long-term plans to ensure a brighter future for all.

The support benefited 6,000 to 20,000 children aged three to 17, including 3,660 girls as well as children taking refuge in host communities, among others.

Funding partner: UNICEF

Early Childhood Care and Education
January 2020 - May 2020

The goal of this project is to provide access to quality Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) and primary education for 80 children, between the ages of four and six, and 90 children, between the ages of seven and 10, respectively, primarily impacting those displaced in Oromia Regional State, Ethiopia, following civil conflict in 2018. We’ll do this by funding the construction, and equipping of, an ECCE centre with classrooms for primary students as well as water and sanitation facilities. These activities are expected to improve children’s cognitive, social and emotional development.

Funding partner: Awash Bank and Awash Insurance

Canada-Africa initiative to address maternal, newborn and child mortality
March 2016 - March 2020

The Canada-Africa Initiative to Address Maternal, Newborn and Child Mortality is a partnership among four Canadian organizations — Amref Health Africa, Children Believe, Centre for Global Child Health at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and WaterAid Canada. With support of $24.9 million from the Government of Canada (85 percent of the total project budget), this four-year project (2016 to 2020) aims to directly reach 1.7-million women, children and men across 20 districts in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and Tanzania. The partners are working together with African communities to improve the delivery of essential health services to moms, pregnant women, newborns and children under the age of five; increase the use of these improved health services; and improve the consumption of nutritious foods and supplements.

Children Believe is implementing the project in Oromia Administrative Zone of Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia, where it’s impacting more than 400,000 people. We’re working closely with regional government health departments as well as women and child affairs offices to plan, implement and monitor the success of the project.

Funding partner: Global Affairs Canada

French translation

Initiative Canada-Afrique visant à remédier la mortalité maternelle, néonatale et infantile L’Initiative Canada-Afrique pour lutter contre la mortalité maternelle, néonatale et infantile vise à réduire la mortalité maternelle, néonatale et infantile dans certaines communautés en Éthiopie, au Kenya, au Malawi et en Tanzanie. Cela implique une approche intégrée axée sur l’amélioration des services de santé, de nutrition, d’eau, d’assainissement et d’hygiène. Le Gouvernement du Canada participe au financement de ce projet à la hauteur de 24,9 millions de dollars canadiens, et ce sur une période de quatre ans. Cette initiative est mise en œuvre par le biais d’un consortium dirigé par Amref Health Africa en partenariat avec Children Believe, Hospital for Sick Children à Toronto et WaterAid Canada.

Children Believe est en train de réalisé le projet dans Oromia, la zone administrative d’Amhara, l’État régional national en Éthiopie. Celle-ci impact plus de 400 000 personnes. Nous travaillons en collaboration étroite avec les départements de la santé des gouvernements régionaux ainsi que les bureaux des affaires des femmes et des enfants pour planifier, mettre en œuvre et contrôler le succès du projet.

Funding partner: Global Affairs Canada

Lead for education achievement and progress
April 2012 - March 2017

The Lead for Education Achievement and Progress (LEAP) project improved early childhood education, addressed gaps in quality primary-school education and promoted access to education for orphaned and vulnerable children. As a result, 19 early childhood care and education centres were built and 40 were renovated. More specifically, 76 centres were equipped with adequate water supplies, latrines as well as indoor and outdoor playing and learning materials. LEAP reached 244,450 people, including 140,036 children, in three districts in Ethiopia.

Funding partner: Global Affairs Canada

Saving brains
October 2014 - September 2016

In Ethiopia, most of the approximately 11-million children under the age of three don’t receive proper care, resulting in about 44 percent of children being stunted and 29 percent being underweight, reports the Ethiopia Central Statistical Agency. The Saving Brains project encouraged parents to protect and nurture early brain development during prenatal and early childhood periods through the distribution of calendars plotting a child’s development and educational videos, which support the Learning-Through-Play methodology. Through Learning Through Play, parents were encouraged to build toys to encourage positive interactions. The project improved the health, physical, cognitive, linguistic and socio-emotional development of 3,000 children, aged zero to three in 2,500 households in Ethiopia.

Funding partner: Grand Challenges Canada

Improving maternal and child health: partnership and action for community transformation
December 2011 - March 2015

Promoting the value of giving birth in health facilities with professionals — that was a goal of the Improving Maternal and Child Health: Partnership and Action for Community Transformation project in Ethiopia. It reached more than 120,000 women and children at more than 70 health facilities. As a result, skilled professionals delivered more than 20,700 babies safely, and 14 health centres and 59 health posts received medical equipment. Now women, men, families and communities understand the value of giving birth with help from trained professionals.

Funding partner: Global Affairs Canada