By Joan Townsend | US Country Director
Ayyelech Argaw is a social science teacher in Goro Rayya Primary School in rural Ethiopia.
Ayyelech says “Last year we did not have a school feeding program in our school. We usually encountered students who went faint while raising the flag in the morning. Inside the classroom, it was usual to watch students get depressed and fall asleep as the class activity progressed. There were times that I got desperate, stopped teaching and let the students have a break in the middle of the lesson. The participation of the students was minimal, to the extent that information flowed directly only from me to the students. Most of them did not react to the questions I ask. Yawning and depression were the frequent signs we always saw while teaching.’’
That was before Retrak, through our partner project Rift Valley Children and Women Development Organization (RCWDO), was able to offer students a supplemental feeding program, in which 650 children receive daily nutritious meals. Ayyelech describes a drastic change:
"This year we did not have to worry about low enrollment, absenteeism and dropout. We are just performing our regular tasks at school, teaching. Much of our time that we have been wasting moving around to get the absentee students back to school is saved. In addition, we can easily call students for catch-up classes and they voluntarily come and attend which has contributed to increasing students’ performances. I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to RCWDO and Retrak, for they have planned and implemented this project that saved our time and even motivated us to carry out our routine tasks without complications.”
Retrak would like to thank you for your support which allows us to in turn support organizations like RCWDO. Thanks to your generousity, Goro Rayya Primary School students have nutritious meals that enable them to stay in school and concentrate on their studies.
Want to continue to support this vital feeding program? Wednesday, March 13 is GlobalGiving Bonus Day, when your donation will be matched by 30%. Please consider making a donation to Retrak on Wednesday, and continue helping us help street children in Africa.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
