By Ashley Lackovich-Van Gorp | Founding Executive Director
Dear Friends of Enhance Worldwide,
The last official survey on street children in Addis Ababa was conducted in 2010, when UNICEF estimated that there were 12,000 unaccompanied children living on the streets. Nearly ten years later, NGOs estimate that these numbers are much higher. Most of these children have no adults to care for them, and they lack access to education, nutritious food and medical care. Boys and girls are both at risk for trafficking for forced labor, with girls at risk for sexual violence, sexual trafficking and child marriage.
At Enhance Worldwide, we mitigate the risks that threaten the security of some of the most vulnerable children in Addis Ababa through integrated programs and support services. We provide Conditional Cash Transfers to families to ensure that they can remain safe, secure and warm in their home, and we ensure that they have access to nutritious food through supplemental nutrition programs. We also make sure that the children have access to education, including school, summer programs, academic tutoring, mentoring, and life skills programs. While we focus on girls, we support families to uplift the entire community.
We closed out 2018 with our girls earning better grades and scoring higher on exams than ever before. Then in 2019 we accepted two new girls, Asnakgch and Zwede, into our Kinship Care program. These two girls, like all girls in our program, are vulnerable to homelessness and food insecurity, and their relatives cannot afford to send them to school without assistance. And like all girls, Asnakgch and Zwede have infinite promise and potential. Thanks to donors like you, these girls joined our cohort and will have the opportunity to learn and grow without the threat of homelessness. They will have nutritious food and academic support, and they will have a network of peers and adults in their community who care for them. We hope that one day Asnakgch and Zwede will take all of this support and grow up to be leaders, making their households, communities and country safer and more just for all women and girls.
We know there are a number of ways you could have spent your donation, so we are privileged that you invested in Enhance Worldwide's work. You are now a part of our community and we are honored to have your support. Please consider sharing our GlobalGiving project on social media or just bring us up in conversation. Together, we stand up for girls!
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