Hope and Healing

Today Member of Parliament for Oak Ridges – Markham, Paul Calandra came to our office to announce, on behalf of Minister of CIDA Bev Oda, that the Canadian government was partnering with cbm Canada for disability work in Ethiopia. You can read our press release on this meeting here.

What does this mean? It means a few things:

1. As much poverty as there is in Ethiopia – we know that people with disabilities are the poorest. People with disabilities have less access to education, health care and livelihood than others.
2. This project will affect, in three years, 770,000 people with disabilities – half of these will be children. Each of these is a person with a family – with care givers. With the objectives of access to education for children with disabilities, projects to increase income and livelihood, and education for other organizations in Ethiopia to make their programs accessible for people with disabilities there will be a new hope for so many.
3. The project will not end in three years! Working with so many partners in the community, building their skills and staff, putting in place health training and prevention – this project will go on forever. This will be a turning point for people with disabilities in Ethiopia. The money from CIDA will end in three years, but the work accomplished will mean people with disabilities will be positively impacted for so many more years.

Yesterday I talked about the dream of a global “Camp Hope”. Today, with this announcement by the Canadian Government we have begun a new camp hope in Ethiopia!