Every day we provide breakfast and lunch for 1,000 people on the street, and 750 street children . . . These children are living on the street and they don’t get any clean water. This is great for the children. As you have seen, they wash, they drink, they quench their thirst here. That is a great thing for us.

—Zenebe Ayele: Executive Director of HOPE Enterprises

Our first visit to HOPE Enterprise’s feeding center was brief. We were visiting children’s organizations throughout Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city. We evaluated their water needs, assessed their programs and leadership, and sought to determine the infrastructural capacity for potential partnership. We walked away stunned by the sheer volume of work they were taking on, and greatly impressed by the staff.
 
Founded originally in the late 1970s to provide shelter for two dozen street children, HOPE grew over the following decades taking on a number of programs focused on childcare, education, vocational training, preventive and rehabilitative street children’s projects, relief programs for the hungry, and for those displaced by emergencies. Today, they have projects in six provinces throughout Ethiopia with dozens of schools, vocational and career training facilities and feeding centers in operation. Most notably, their feeding center in Addis Ababa provides more than 200,000 meals per year to children and adults living on the street. It is here that our partnership began.



Prior to our collaboration, HOPE’s Director, Zenebe Ayele, relayed that while HOPE was able to ensure consistent quality of the food they provided, there was little way of ensuring potable water. In late 2009, a child’s right worked with HOPE to ensure the water at their primary feeding center was safe (e.g., water for all food preparation, for drinking purposes, and for hand washing). This would require a high water volume solution, given such massive food preparation.
 
We keep in scheduled contact with Zenebe. Our in-country staff monitor all our sites every three months presently. Our goal has never been to briefly intervene, then walk away. Our desire is to stay in touch, to trust but verify, and to walk hand in hand with our partners. We have found that the combination of true partnership, effective technology, and ongoing monitoring and support are the key ingredients for a sustainable solution.
 
 

Because we are teaching in the school about cleanness, about sanitation, and providing them this clean water is sometimes a difficult thing. One of the major problems in Ethiopia is the provision of clean and potable water. The children are affected by communicable diseases… that comes from lack of sanitation and clean water. These children still live in the street, and they need clean water to keep them healthy and to attend to their education in a good way.
 
Thank you.

—Zenebe Ayele: Executive Director of HOPE Enterprises

Please keep an eye on our work with HOPE on our ProvingIt website. (HOPE Enterprise site 1 or HOPE Enterprises site 2) There you will be able to view real-time updates from the field on progress that is being made.