By Joe Rodriguez, Mercury News
SILICON VALLY, CALIFORNIA – Two years ago, Joseph Zeleke rushed to a crowded hospital in Addis Ababa with a heavy heart, and several tons of donated American medical equipment for Ethiopian clinics waiting on the docks.
“The shipment was ready and now it could fall apart,” the Ethiopian immigrant remembered last week. “But I had to get to the hospital for personal reasons.”
Yemegnushal Haile, a nurse who was going to receive the equipment from Zeleke, had just died in the hospital from injuries suffered in an auto accident. This couldn’t be happening, Zeleke thought, saddened by her death and worried that the equipment might never get to the clinic.
The death of his sister Zenbech from breast cancer and AIDS in 2000 at age 45 had shaken him terribly. He put off college to start World Family, a charity based in Milpitas, California, that has delivered over $6 million in medical equipment to Ethiopia. A former importer in that desperately poor country, Zeleke knew he couldn’t let the latest shipment sit idly in storage waiting for thieves or corrupt officials.
As Zeleke gave his condolences to Haile’s husband, a chance meeting would solve the problem and much more. At Haile’s deathbed was her daughter, Emebet Billingham, a model and fashion designer from San Anselmo, an affluent Bay Area town. Before the accident, Billingham was helping her mother raise money in America for orphanages in Ethiopia.
Euyeal Joseph Zeleke and Emebet Bellingham are
co-directors of The World Family [Photo: Robert Tong] After the funeral, Zeleke and Billingham rode together in a Toyota Landcruiser to the clinic where Billingham’s mother worked, the one set to receive those medical donations now on the dock. The more they talked, the more they uncovered similarities. They were the same age, now 40. Each has two kids, the eldest born in the same month and year. Each was an immigrant, now driven by the loss of a loved one, to help Ethiopia.
“Call it a karmic meeting or whatever,” Billingham said at the warehouse in Milpitas. “I think it was our destiny for Joseph and I to meet and, at least for me, to carry on my mother’s work.”
Slender and fit, Zeleke has sad eyes and brilliant, white teeth that somehow combine to power his quiet, articulate voice.
With a high school education — most Ethiopians never make it that far — he was making a decent living as a fresh-fruit broker in Ethiopia, but he wanted more. He won a lottery visa in 1999 to study in the United States. A year later, his sister died.
“I had no idea she had AIDS or when or where she got it,” he said, speculating that she kept it a secret because it’s a taboo disease in Ethiopian culture. Haunted by her death, Zeleke took a long hard look at his homeland and didn’t like what he saw.
When the World Health Organization surveyed Ethiopia’s medical landscape two years ago, it found only 112 hospitals serving a population of 75 million. There were only 2.6 doctors for every 100,000 people. AIDS was rampant. The country didn’t have a single dental school. Poor Ethiopians were more likely to visit untrained folk healers or tooth-pullers than see the inside of a modern clinic.
He started World Family in 2003 to fill the new health facilities with hardware. One of the first supporters he met in Silicon Valley was Vanessa Cooper, a local housing advocate who also advises charities trying to help Africa.
“I get a lot of people who want to start non-profits but most of them never get off the ground,” said Cooper, who was born in Kenya. “Joseph is rare. He had this passion from his personal story about his sister … and he had a business model.”
From his experience as a fruit-broker, Zeleke learned how to get things passed customs, deal with Ethiopian Woyanne bureaucrats and transport his goods from the docks to his customers. What he’s doing now is brokering between Silicon Valley hospitals that need to get rid of old equipment and Ethiopian clinics that need it. Those old medical machines, Cooper said, otherwise could end up in American landfills.
She said Zeleke’s pitch to American hospitals boils down to: “I’m going to save you the cost of unloading this equipment, but I’m going to make you feel good about it!”
Billingham, meanwhile, was a teenager in the mid-1980s when she moved to the Bay Area with her father. A brain-drain from Ethiopia was in full swing. After studying at the Fashion Institute of Design, she became a model and designer, married and started a family. Occasionally, she’d help her dynamic mother carry out ambitious medical and social plans for rural Ethiopia.
However, after her mother’s death, Billingham gave up her career to join World Family.
She concentrated on the social side, first raising money for a community center for orphans, which is named after her mother. She has plans for building many more.
With Zeleke as CEO, Billingham as president and an office manager on board, World Family recently moved into its first office in a Milpitas shopping center. From there the team marshals a small army of volunteers, from Ethiopian-American teenagers to technicians who test the medical equipment at a second, bigger warehouse in Oakland.
In only five years, World Family has shipped dozens of containers stuffed with over $6 million in donated medical equipment, enough to equip two hospitals and several clinics. At one hospital, Zeleke said, a grateful woman who had just give birth in the facility named her new son, “Hospital.” Partnering with the American Dental Association, they equipped Ethiopia’s first two dental schools.
World Family has scored a few hefty contributions. The Clinton Foundation, as in Bill and Hillary, gave them $260,000 in cash. Stanford Medical Center and the Lucille Packard Children’s Hospital are their largest equipment donors. The warehouse space in Milpitas and Oakland is donated.
Even so, Zeleke said World Family needs to raise $26,000 each month to cover costs, mostly for shipping and salaries. He’s also looking for a medium size forklift. And that’s just for now. They want to equip 200 more clinics and raise money for more community centers and orphanages by 2010, only two years from now.
That’s when Zeleke wants to retire from charity and move on to something else, like a cozy job in high-tech. Billingham said she’ll probably stick around longer.
“The problem is,” Billingham said, ”that the more successful you become the harder it is to leave. There is so much need.”
In Ethiopia, that’s always a given.
For more information: www.theworldfamily.org
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – The number of Ethiopians needing emergency food assistance has jumped to 6.4 million from 4.6 million in June, the aid agency Oxfam said on Friday.
Drought and high food prices have both contributed to the worsening crisis in Ethiopia and other parts of the Horn of Africa like Somalia and north Kenya, aid workers say.
Oxfam, citing U.N. figures, said there was a $260 million shortfall for agencies trying to address Ethiopia’s crisis.
“Compared with the funds going to shore up the global financial system, the aid needed to save lives in Ethiopia is a drop in the ocean,” Oxfam’s country director Waleed Rauf said.
While government figures showed 6.4 million people needed emergency assistance, more than 13.5 million were in need of some sort of aid, Oxfam said. “The number of those suffering severe hunger and destitution has spiralled,” Rauf said.
(Reporting by Barry Malone, editing by Tim Pearce)
By Prasanna
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – On Saturday, I woke up bright and early at 5:30 AM to leave for my first shift as a volunteer/English/Music teacher at Menagesha – the Cheshire Services Rehabilitation Facility for children with disabilities. I caught a mini-bus to Meskal Square where I boarded the Cheshire Services employee bus which transports all of the Cheshire employees to Menagesha from Addis and then back to Addis at the end of the shift. Menagesha is about 25 km away from Addis and the bus leaves Meskal Square about 6:45 AM. The bus was really nice, unlike any of the mini-buses or local transport I had taken so far. In fact, it was reminiscent of a Greyhound bus back home with plush seats and head rests. As expected, I fell asleep and awoke 1 hour later to find myself at Menagesha.
The first order of the day was to meet with the teacher at Menagesha who taught the children math and languages during the week. I was told that I would teach my class from 9 to 10:15 AM. For the first hour (i.e. from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM), I worked in the handicraft room with the children. The children taught me how to make woven bags, wallets, purses etc. One of the children also told me that he would show me how to use the sewing machine next week. I told him that I barely passed sewing in Grade 9 and this was after my sewing teacher had practically made my whole final project for me. The craft room was such a treat and reminded me of the many crafts that my mom taught me when I was a child.
At 9 AM, I started to teach my first English class which included about 40 students ranging in age from 4 years old to about 15 years old. The levels of English comprehension also varied from child to child with some children being quite fluent in English and others wanting to learn the basics. I started off with some easy conversational questions including asking the children to tell the group their names, their hometowns etc. The children are all from outside of Addis and while they are staying at Menagesha, they often do not have much (or any contact) with their family. The children were all very happy to talk about their hometowns and tell me about themselves. I told them a bit about life in Canada which generated a number of questions, especially from the older children – about the weather in Canada, whether the people were nice, what it was like compared to Ethiopia etc. They asked how I traveled from Canada to Ethiopia – by boat or plane?
It was fascinating to hear all of their questions and to engage them in conversation. It was often hard to communicate though given the linguistic barriers and the teacher (Hailu) who teaches the class throughout the week served as a translator. This linguistic barrier is further complicated by the fact that all of the children do not speak Amharic, as they are from different regions of Ethiopia with different linguistic traditions.
Afterwards, I taught them a song that I learned when I was taking music/human values classes in Canada. I wrote the lyrics on the blackboard and the children who could read English automatically lifted their voices in order to serve as beacons for the children who could not read. Eventually, after about 5 or 6 go-arounds on the song, the children were good to go and really enjoyed it. They also learned all of the actions that went with the song. I was so impressed.
They then asked me what type of music I liked and I told them that I really enjoyed Teddy Afro and his song Ababaiyo. The children were thrilled and then one child counted the beat and the entire class burst into a rousing rendition of Ababaiyo complete with the rhythmic clapping beat that is so central to the song. I was so touched and they could tell I was totally enjoying it. It was like a musical where suddenly the entire cast bursts into song! No joke.
After class, the kids were so sweet and wanted to visit with me. It was not the gawking or over-inquisitiveness that I often encounter in Addis when some people are fascinated by the “farenji”, but instead it was a genuine concern and outpouring of love. I ended up playing soccer with some of the kids. Yes – you all read that correctly. I played a sport. I was actually running around on a field kicking a soccer ball. Luckily the traumatic memories of my one year in soccer in Grade 4 did not come flooding back. I then had a chance to play table tennis with one of the kids.
Apparently, word spread that there was this farenji teaching music and English lessons to the children. You see, many of the children at Menagesha are confined to their beds, as they have just underwent surgical procedures that require them to remain on strict bed-rest for a long time. These children heard that I had given a class and asked that I come and visit them also. It was so wonderful to meet these kids. As I mentioned earlier, I was super nervous about what it would be like to teach given the huge linguistic barriers (with me knowing virtually no Amharic).
The children in the recovery wing were super awesome. They could sense that I was not sure how to communicate with them. They pointed to different things around the room and taught me how to say them in Amharic. They taught me how to count to one million in Amharic (not each and every number but the main numbers i.e. 1 to 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, and 1000000). They taught me about colours and animals and furniture and the corresponding words in Amharic. They would repeat words with difficult pronunciations to make sure I understood them correctly. At 11:45 AM, it was time for their lunch and it was time for me to leave to catch my bus back to Addis which departed at noon. The children insisted that I stay and have lunch with them and when I told them I would come back next week, each one of them called me to come close and gave me a huge hug. It took everything in me not to burst into tears (which admittedly did happen on my walk back to the bus).
These children, full of love, laughter and light, have touched my heart in a way that I cannot even begin to express, just by accepting me so unconditionally. On Saturday morning, I traveled to Menagesha hoping to help in some small way. The truth is that I did nothing. These children helped me. They taught me Amharic. They got me to play soccer (I know – shocking!). They got me to laugh. They sang me Ababaiyo. They got me to see that life, with its many obstacles and complexities, is so precious. They are absolutely incredible and I am so grateful to them.
– – – – – –
The writer is a lawyer from Saskatchewan, Canada, who is currently in Ethiopia on an international placement. Menagesha is a rehabilitation facility which helps children during their post-surgery rehabilitation. Most of the children face a permanent physical disability and the center specializes in working with these children. The center includes physical rehabilitation services, a department which builds wheelchairs, prosthetic limbs, and assistive footwear devices. The children are also given daily instruction both in subjects such as English and arithmetic but also in life skills and art. The children typically arrive at Menagesha immediately after their surgery and remain there for a period of 4-6 months for post-surgery rehabilitation.
EDITOR’S NOTE: As if terrorizing and starving millions of Ethiopians is not enough, the regime of Tigrean People Liberation Front (Woyanne) – supported by the U.S. State Department and the World Bank – has invaded Somalia and turned it into a hell on earth, as the following story by a French magazine LaDepeche shows.
Somalia: The worst state in the world
Throughout the last week, the news has once again centred on Somalia, as a series of attacks on ships sailing through coastal waters has revealed just how much trouble Somalia is in. Pirating is a profitable business in the failed Eastern African state, as ransoms can lead to a way out of the country,and for some a new life. Last week, pirates hijacked a Ukrainian ship, some 300 miles off the coast, containing 20 Russian tanks bound for South Africa. The ransom was set at €15 million, and for once governments and private corporations are struggling to find ways to pay for it. This is the 20th attack this year, so supplying ransoms for hijacked ships encourages pirates more, rather than deters them. But how, most importantly, has Somalia become and remains the world’s most failed state?
Somalia, throughout history, is known for its rich soil, bountiful fish stocks and poetry. Some of the best poets on the continent, historically speaking, hail from Somalia. But since 1991, the country has been driven into chaos, as a lack of centralized government and a series of poorly planned interventions from the outside world has sunk the country deeper into hell every year. Famines and warring clan factions haven’t helped either. Now, since 1991, the once beautiful Mogadishu, the coastal capital of the country, has lost nearly ¾ of its population, and millions more around the country have fled, mostly to neighbouring Kenya or Ethiopia.
Two years ago, an Islamist government swept into power through violence and intimidation and finally brought order and stability to the country. It came at a cost though. Sharia law became the preferred penal code and women were stripped of rights, let alone dignity. But order came. Crime fell sharply, the airport briefly opened up and trade slowly trickled in, as the Islamists, despite all their flaws, tried to rebuild the country to shape their desires – conservative, religious, patriarchal, harsh and hopefully, stable.
But the Americans, with the help of the Ethiopian Woyanne military, refused to allow Islamists to run a country famous for harbouring terrorists, so they invaded and defeated them. Since, a poorly organized transitional government has done nothing, making it easier for pirates to operate on the coastal waters. Unemployment nears 90%, infrastructure is dismal and the country is too dangerous for international aid organizations, so piracy, crime and drug smuggling provide jobs and money, something the government and international community can’t. So as of now, Somalia remains failed, impoverished and drowning in a sea of problems; it’s good this piracy has become salient in the news. Too bad the state of country hasn’t. Everyone is praying for the hostages aboard the hijacked Ukrainian ship. But no one seems to pray for Somalia anymore.
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