Boricha H.O.P.E. Center
Boricha is one of the woredas in the Southern, Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region State of Ethiopia. It is part of the Sidama Zone located in the Great Rift Valley. It is bordered on the South by Loka Abaya, on the west by Wolayta zone, on the North West by Oromiya region, on the north east by Hawassa Zuria woreda, on the east by Shebedino woreda and on the south east by Dale woreda.
It has a total population of 250,260 of which 125,524 are men and124, 736 are women. 10,402 or 4.16% of the population are urban dwellers where as 239,858 are rural dwellers. The majority of the inhabitants 77.9% Protestants, 8.94% Catholic, 8.22% Muslin, 1.81% traditional religions and 1.14% are followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox Christianity.
In the fall of 2016 SHAPEthiopia received a generous grant that allowed us to launch the Boricha H.O.P.E. Center, located in the village around Yirba town. 150 children are participating in this program. The grant allowed us to hire a program manager, social worker, and two cooks. The children are also entitled for receiving daily meals along with school supplies, school uniforms, school fees, hygiene care materials, and medical care through this program.
Our Activities in Boricha
Besides Child and Youth Development Program, addressing impoverished and marginalized widowed women and community development are SHAPEthiopia’s focus areas of intervention for which grants, funds and partnership requests has been carried out through application and unsolicited direct mailing. This is because the socio-economic challenges resulted from poverty in Boricha area are so complicated where women and children are the prime sufferer. For instance, a widow who lost her husband usually abandoned, discriminated and forced to handle all issues of caring and feeding in average more than three children, and securing livelihood that was done traditional breadwinner – the husband. So, the pressure and challenge of miserable life events are the daily circumstance of women in the area.
Not only that, Boricha is well known both in the region and nationally for the sever lack of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene (these two episodes are always the situation when water is a shortage), and environmental protection. Furthermore, the health status of the woreda is also poorer than the other areas in that malaria commonly pandemic.
So, these all challenging situation of people in the area need more support and collaboration and partnership for SHAPEthiopia alone can’t address them all. SHAPEthiopia tried to address few widowed women under its Widows’ Empowerment Program (Boricha Widows’ Hope Poultry and Livestock Development Project) activity albeit much work has been left in order to replicate.
Our U.S.-based partner, Partners With Ethiopia, is managing the H.O.P.E. Child Development Program. To learn more about our U.S.-based partner, go to www.partnerswithethiopia.org.