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Gems & Java helps Mothers with a Heart for Ethiopia change lives

The money raised through event sponsors, ticket sales, a silent auction, and donations goes to support seven key projects in south-central and eastern Ethiopia.

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More than 600 women have had surgery to reverse a painful, isolating medical condition. Close to 100 vulnerable children have a safe place to live and all they need to thrive. Dozens of young women are equipped with life skills, athletic training, and financial literacy.

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Those are just a few of the results of a volunteer-powered Woodstock organization that’s raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for women and children in Ethiopia. On April 22 at 1:30 p.m., Mothers with a Heart for Ethiopia will bring its flagship fundraiser back to the South Gate Centre at its traditional spring timeframe.

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Gems & Java is a popular and meaningful event, drawing guests from all across Southwestern Ontario to raise money; hear updates about the projects Mothers with a Heart for Ethiopia supports financially; enjoy an amazing live jazz trio and delicious food and drinks; shop in the Ethiopian Merkato and Bags & Baubles Boutique – which features gently used purses, scarves and jewelry – and bid at the silent auction.

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Tickets are available at www.motherswithaheartforethiopia.com/gems-java, $60 each until March 31 and rising to $65 on April 1 when early bird sales end. Tables of eight can also be reserved for larger groups of guests.

There is a real sense of inspiration at Gems & Java, an annual event focused on making a difference in the lives of Ethiopian women and children who are living in poverty.

Shelley Green, founder of the organization, has travelled to Ethiopia many times to meet with women, children and the organization’s project partners to ensure the money sent to Ethiopia is used for the intended purposes and to assess needs and effectiveness of the projects. Green brings to Gems & Java real-life stories of lives transformed by the funds raised here.

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“Hearing the life stories, the unbelievable struggles women and children have experienced in Ethiopia and how, through our funds, their lives have been transformed makes my heart both cry and sing.  Each time I look into the eyes of a woman or a child in Ethiopia, I am reminded that we don’t choose where we are born. We cannot change the world but we can change the world for one person at a time through our donations,” Green said.

The money raised through event sponsors, ticket sales, a silent auction, and donations goes to support seven key projects in south-central and eastern Ethiopia. The impact is astounding.

One project offers surgeries to correct cases of prolapse, when the uterus falls out of place. In the most severe cases, women have been living with their uteruses hanging outside the body, sometimes even for years with devastating physical and emotional impacts. They’ve been isolated from friends and family because of the smell of the condition and suffered mentally.

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Mothers with a Heart for Ethiopia has funded more than 600 of these life-changing surgeries.

One recipient, Meselech, shared her feelings when volunteers from Woodstock travelled to a rural health clinic to monitor the project work.

“Look at me now, this is new life,” she said, four years after surgery to correct the prolapse that made simple daily tasks an impossible feat and left Meselech isolated and in constant tears.

“Now it is a good life. I can go to church, market. Anywhere I want, I can go,” she said. “I am singing, I can dance. I am a new woman.”

Even better, Meselech is spreading the word in her rural community about the health care and medical options available for women suffering from prolapse.

Money raised at Gems & Java supports women like Meselech.

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It goes to fund powerful, community-driven development work that is culturally sensitive in Harar and Sodo, Ethiopia.

Other projects include:

  • The creation of washable, reusable, affordable pads (dubbed WRAPS) that are distributed to young women who may otherwise miss school – or even drop out – due to lack of access to menstrual products. The project also employs women to sew the pads, provide outreach lessons at schools, and continue their own education at the same time. The WRAPS team as well, as the WRAPS Cafe employees, attend school at night with an aim for empowering the female employees. These women have graduated from high school, college, and university programs and are supporting their families through employment.
  • A rehabilitation and training program that helps young children who have previously lived on the street and reunites them with family in more than 80 per cent of cases. This project, called Busajo, includes everything from psychological, educational and daily life support to sports and recreation. Young people learn essential life skills as they adjust to a safe and loving home, taking on chores, going to school, and building relationships with their peers, all with the goal of eventually reuniting with family.
  • An athletic scholarship that teaches young women the sport of running while providing school tuition, nutritious snacks and meals, and life skills from hygiene to healthy relationships. The Girls Gotta Run program also creates community-wide change by engaging the mothers of the girls on scholarship, creating a “savings group” where the women learn financial and entrepreneurial skills, eventually opening a bank account and saving money to offer micro-loans to one another.
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Last fall, a brand-new sponsorship program, Team Tesfa, was unveiled to support another program, called Tesfa’s Shelter. This incredible place provides a safe and loving home for 92 children left orphaned or homeless. Children who have known years of fear, violence and other realities of living on the street (or in homes that were not safe or could not provide for their basic needs) are able to be kids again. Spanning ages three to 19, the children are able to build relationships and forge a path toward a new life through Tesfa’s Shelter.

Aysha, a young woman who lived on the streets with her younger sister after being forced to leave the family home, now has a safe place to live and a family around her at Tesfa’s Shelter in Harar, Ethiopia. Mothers with a Heart for Ethiopia provides funds to the shelter and recently launched an innovative sponsorship program called Team Tesfa. (Submitted)
Aysha, a young woman who lived on the streets with her younger sister after being forced to leave the family home, now has a safe place to live and a family around her at Tesfa’s Shelter in Harar, Ethiopia. Mothers with a Heart for Ethiopia provides funds to the shelter and recently launched an innovative sponsorship program called Team Tesfa. (Submitted) jpg, WD

The children show remarkable strength and resilience despite the unimaginable hardship they’ve experienced, working as a team to keep the shelter spotlessly clean and running smoothly. They are focused on school, many earning grades that place them at the top of their classes.

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“On the street, there were days I didn’t even sleep the whole night because I protected my sister. I had to watch over her,” Aysha, who is just a teen, said of her time living on the streets with her younger sister.

The sisters were forced to leave their home because of a parent with severe and untreated mental illness.

“Here, we are safe. We sleep on a nice mattress.”

Join guests at Gems & Java to support a new future for Aysha, for Meselech, and thousands of other women and children touched by this work.


IF YOU GO

What: Gems & Java

Where: South Gate Centre

When: April 22, 1:30 p.m.

Tickets: $60 until March 31, $65 starting April 1, available at https://www.motherswithaheartforethiopia.com.

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