Batonga’s newest program, Empowering Ethiopian Girls for Peaceful Change, has been running for seven months and is already making an impact on over 800 young women. Here is what some of the newest Batonga girls are saying:

“I have no parents and I support myself working in other people’s homes.

Going to school means I have a future.”

“I want to be a model for the coming generation.”

“I thought I was meant to be in poverty, but now I see a better way.”

This program provides girls in the poorest districts of Southern Ethiopia with the opportunity to continue their education through secondary school and offers vocational training, loans, and other economic incentives to the girls’ mothers so that they may increase household income and be better able to support their daughters’ education.

Batonga is excited to continue working with Mercy Corps in this endeavor, which we believe will provide quality education to girls living in some of Ethiopia’s most impoverished villages.

The heavy floods that have hit Benin since mid-September have destroyed 55,000 homes, killed tens of thousands of cattle and increased the risk of cholera, the United Nations warned Monday. The small West African country of 8.8 million people has been severely flooded during the rainy season due to torrential rain which has caused flooding of the Niger and Ouémé rivers and their tributaries, the UN says.

In a statement, the organization said that rising water continues to “aggravate the situation.” Over 300 people have been killed in West and Central Africa and at least 680,000 people have been affected by the flooding in Benin alone.

According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), about 200,000 people need shelter in the country, more than 55,000 homes have been totally destroyed, 128,000 hectares of crops have been destroyed, and 81,000 heads livestock have perished.

The World Food Programme (WFP), CARE and Caritas have distributed food to the homeless. ”Food is one of the most important needs,” said Moumini Ouedraogo, WFP. “Many people have lost their crops due to devastating floods, if we do not help, the consequences could be severe.”

The UN has provided 262,000 water purification tablets and hygiene supplies for 150,000 people. The World Health Organization (WHO) has treated 1,000 cases of cholera and Doctors Without Borders is providing treatment for the disease in the economic capital, Cotonou.

Source: AFP

The Batonga Foundation is excited to announce a new program in Ethiopia. Together with Mercy Corps and Melissa Wagner Zorkin, CEO of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide, Batonga will be providing microcredit loans to mothers and female caregivers of girls in secondary school, with the loans being contingent upon their daughter’s enrollment and attendance in school. In addition,we are committed to providing financial support to families with girls in secondary school whose income is less than $80 a year. The program will support the most vulnerable in the Konso and Derashe regions of Southwestern Ethiopia. We will be supporting 800 girls throughout their secondary education and we are excited to be able to give them what we have given to other Batonga girls throughout Africa!

Meet the Newest Batonga Girls and their Mothers:

Elfinesh Emiru helps mend conflicts in her village while working with her neighbors to save money, pool resources and start small businesses. Though she has been able to improve her life and the lives of her family, her daughter’s education still weighs on her mind. Sending children to school beyond the most basic level is a near-impossibility where she lives. Most families in the area make less than $80 a year, while secondary school fees and supplies routinely add up to more than $125 a year. As a result, less than half of children from 5-18 attend school, and no more than one-third of students in secondary school are female.

Through the new Empowering Ethiopian Girls for Peaceful Change program, we’ll send young women to secondary school through scholarships and household loans, offer job apprenticeships to graduates and expand vocational training opportunities for all women in the area. It is our hope that — through this new and exciting program — hundreds of young women will get the education they need to not only continue the important work of their grandmothers, mothers and older sisters, but also contribute new ideas that will help bring even more positive, lasting change to the villages they call home.