Our last trip took place in February 2020; Corona in the world and the war in Tigray have kept us from visiting our families, friends and projects in and around Aksum.

In June 2023, there was a first short trip by our chairman – but here there was only a first brief overview. So now the time had finally come: Visiting families, friends and projects!

 

The most important things in advance: We are very happy that most of our family members and friends are still alive!
Nevertheless, we also have victims to mourn in our environment.
Our thoughts are with all those who have lost someone and think that every single victim is one too many!

The war in particular has brought a lot of suffering and poverty, and we would like to help much more. Nevertheless, the possibilities of a small association are limited. Nevertheless, we think we were able to achieve a lot during the war and now during our trip and put a smile on the faces of some people (especially children). All this would not have been possible without the great support of so many people – so we would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has supported us so wonderfully and continues to support us!

 

And what exactly were we able to achieve during our journey?

Elementary-School Endayesus:

  • Repair of broken tables/benches
  • Procurement of broken or stolen benches/tables and blackboards
  • Repair of the roof
  • New construction of destroyed concrete outdoor benches
  • Replacement of broken windows
  • Commissioning for the completely stolen electrical cables
  • Order of a 10,000-litre tank, which will be connected to the gutters; and the commission to set it up
  • Discussions with the community about the use of the remaining donations. These are used to participate in a possible energy supply for the families in Endayesus. Initial discussions also took place with the energy supplier

Further information can be found directly in our project.

 

Elementary-School May Berazyo:

  • Commissioning of all trades to complete the construction
  • Talks with Woreda on the contractual handover of the school
  • Participation in a “handover ceremony” on 18.01.2024

Further information can be found directly in our project.

 

St. Mary`s-Hospital:

  • Distribution of donations to 17 (malnourished) babies/children
  • Handover of 144 (mostly) reading glasses

Further information can be found directly in our project.

 

Emergency aid:

  • Handover of a monetary donation to the “Hawelti” district, where food is provided for the needy
  • Participation/participation in two meals for around 570 needy people in Aksum each. This also included that we participated in the shopping
  • Donation for 3 more meals for these needy people
  • Distribution of donations in the Referal-Hospital and the St. Mary ́s Hospital to a total of 34 babies / children, who were massively malnourished and partly also sick.
  • Handover of bandages and glasses to the hospitals

Further information can be found directly in our project.

 

Installing a new project for women in Aksum after the war:

As in every war, women in Tigray are the victims of violence, rape and more. That’s why, in cooperation with Wholidays, we had already earmarked the donations of the current calendar for a project to support women.
For example, there were talks with the Referal Hospital in Aksum, where there is a ward for affected women for exactly the areas in which we want to help. There were also several talks with the international organization “Imagine-1-Day”. The conversations with the head of the “Social Affair” in Aksum were helpful. Together with the contact person from the Hawelti district, we found 10 women whom we now want to help medically and therapeutically. But another thought is to build an existence. In this context, there will be a “bee project” with which the women will learn to produce honey.
For this purpose, there was the art project by and with Beedabei.
In the meantime, an (unregistered) association has been founded by these women. They are given land by the city of Aksum where they can start this project. There will also be support in the form of workshops.

Further information can be found directly in our project.

 

Hawelti-Mobil:
Due to Corona and the war, our actual main project took a back seat. Not only because many schools are still unable to work fully and many children have been deprived of an even more “vision” of a good future due to the war, we now want to work more intensively on this project again.
That is why there was a meeting with the new president of the university in Aksum. The conversation went very well and brought us important insights. Above all, we are pleased that we will continue to have the university as a partner at our side.

Further information can be found directly in our project.

 

Art project with “Beedabei”:

This action is not a “project” in the true sense of the word; but we are convinced that we were able to set a (peace) sign with this action.
We can only thank everyone who supported us for this really great campaign.
AND these 25 bee feeding stations also help (hopefully for a long time) the women of our new project!

You can find more information directly in our completed project and our new project.

 

In addition, we were able to…
• … in the Megabit-18 school, in the May Berazyo elementary school and in the camp for internally displaced people. We received these educational games last year as a donation from our new partner Schmetterline. We are very happy; the teachers and children were even happier!
• … set up a new donation dinosaur in the Hotel Brana. Unfortunately, the one we set up in 2018 did not survive the war either. We say THANK YOU to the final manager Dibekulu and look forward to many donations!

 

And we don’t want to forget…

On 03.01.2024 was a special day: Hawelti e.V. celebrated its 10th birthday! Actually, we had planned for this special day to hand over the school in May Berazyo as a highlight. Unfortunately, the construction was far from finished.
So we decided to postpone this (also) special event by another two weeks.
And so we invited our (now 20) members from Aksum to a “general meeting” and a subsequent celebration. In addition, there were the members of our partner association of the “Myshum Yebego Aderagot Mahiber” as well as some helping hands of the last years.
And after Asefaw became our first Hawelti member in Ethiopia, that evening our first chairman Marcel became the first non-Ethiopian member of the Myshum Yebego Aderagot Mahiber.
It was a cozy evening with many nice conversations.