Teaching Ethiopian street children

Andy Lewis with a group of Ethiopian street children [CAFOD]

"Despite the most horrible stories, they're still just kids with these huge smiles". CAFOD volunteer Andy Lewis reports back on his experiences teaching street children in Ethiopia

Andy recently returned from a summer of teaching English to the street children. He spent six weeks in Mekele with CAFOD partner The Daughters of Charity.

Their project provides care for children who have little or no family to support them, so Andy's experiences involved much more than just teaching English.

“Before I went out, I was told that I’d be teaching but in reality, it was so much more" he says.

"Many of the children lost their fathers in the war between Eritrea and Ethiopia, so we were positive role models for them, giving emotional support and guidance".

Huge optimism

Despite the situation these children are in, Andy was struck by the positive atmosphere he found.

“As with most people, my image of Ethiopia was created by television pictures from the famine back in 1984, but this couldn’t have been more wrong" he says.

"You still see the poverty but there’s a lot of growth, huge optimism and unending hope for the future".

Andy's view of the statistics surrounding poverty also changed forever. "In Ethiopia, 60 million people live in poverty. My experience made me realise that it’s too easy just to see that as a figure.

"In reality, there are 60 million individual stories, 60 million different reasons why people find themselves where they are.”

Raising funds

Although Andy has supported CAFOD for a number of years, this was his first opportunity to see for himself the work of CAFOD's partners.

Each year, CAFOD and sister agency, SCIAF, carefully select two volunteers who spend six weeks with The Daughters of Charity. This year, Andy was fortunate enough to be one of those selected.

Andy enlisted the support of friends, family and Catholics across the Brentwood diocese in raising funds for his trip.

In total he raised more than £2,500, some of which was given to the Daughters of Charity to help kit out its new school building with chairs, tables and other essentials like books, pens and paper.

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