Korah, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Bright Hope School is a government funded school for 1st through 8th grade, and it's located in the area from the video above - Korah. There are over 2,000 students; the number of students who are orphans is around 300-500. The teachers pool their income to provide breakfast for 116 of the 1st - 4th grade orphans. There are 16 children in the school who are HIV positive.

The government funds the education of the students, but the extra services provided for the orphans comes through outside sources. The Principle of the school shared his vision of helping these orphans in four phases.

The goal is to establish a fresh water source and a self sustaining food supply for Bright Hope School. The garden/mini-farm is in development at this school for 2000 + very poor Ethiopian children. Most the students have lost both or one of their parents to HIV/AIDS or Leprosy. With you partnering with Journey Church on this project, Bright Hope School can feed the children, teach the children a useful life skill and possibly sell excess vegetables and chickens.

1. Water - There is now CLEAN WATER for all students and staff of Bright Hope School. Praise God for the funds raised and a completed project!

2. Chicken Farm - By giving the orphans the skills to run a chicken farm they will learn a skill to provide food, extra chickens & eggs to sell, income to pay for a school uniform (without that they cannot attend the school) & medical care. This project would include 3 chicken houses (one for chicks, one for laying hens and one for cocks). The cost includes the purchase of incubators, water pipes, electricity, cereals, chick fodder, powdered gypsum, vitamins and other feed supplies. The cost of this project is $18,000 (each chicken house is about $6,000).
UPDATE: ALL of the three chicken houses' costs have been met! Construction is just about finished, and the chickens are ready to be purchased!

3. Vegetable Garden - Restoring 6,000 sq. meters (approximately 1 - acres) of open land for a large vegetable garden. This requires clearing the existing property of rocks and preparing the soil to be much more productive. It will require laying water pipes and electricity, buying vegetable seeds & fertilizers, and then hiring an administrator and part time gardeners. Initial construction and hiring expenses = $21,000 Subsequent years at $5,000 a year for workers and seed.
UPDATE: This aspect of the project has been fully funded. The garden is growing! Please see the images above for visual progress.

4. Security Wall - Because Ethiopia is so poor, the first three projects will be stolen without a security wall around the property. There is a wall around the school that has breeches in it which need to be secured. They would like to build an 8' high cinder block wall around the garden and chickens. Cost of building a wall around the entire compound (approximately 13 acres) is $165,000-$190,000.
UPDATE: There is $50,000 more to raise to get this wall done! Journey Church and Harvest Church will be taking work teams to help the Ethiopian labor with this wall.

How You Can Help

1. Give - The students, teachers, and community surrounding Bright Hope can donate their time and effort towards some of these projects, but ultimately they need help to fund them. Right now we're sending funds to Bright Hope so they can purchase wall building materials.
UPDATE: During Christmas 2009, the Journey Church family gave more than $13,000 towards the efforts at Bright Hope School. What amazing generosity everyone showed!

2. Work Teams
We're planning our next work trip to Bright Hope School for December/January of 2010/2011.
For more detailed information, please read the Information Packet (click here).
Please download an application here. They are due by September 15th.

See what our work teams are doing on the blog they keep while in Ethiopia!
http://www.journeyweb.net/ethiopiahopeblog

3. Support Race4Equality
Journey's Lindsey & Dustin Diefenderfer are running a marathon a month for an entire year to spread awareness and fundraise for Bright Hope School in Ethiopia. Check out their website and blog if you get a chance!

CONTACT INFO
Kate Townley
579-9437
kate@journeyweb.net