Projects
Children’s Center
Awassa Children’s Center provides care and support for approximately 100 children in Awassa, Ethiopia, most who have been orphaned by the AIDS epidemic. The children are given the necessary nutrition, clothing, housing, education, and counseling required for a healthy upbringing, and in-turn, the opportunity to become a self-reliant and active member of the Awassa community.
Vocational Training Center
The Awassa Children’s Vocational Training Center offers a state of the art vocational training facility. Providing training in computer skills, wood, metal, and electronic technologies, ACP aims to improve the lives of under-privileged youth from the Awassa community. The skills gained here open the door to independent futures for otherwise unsupported young people. A large number of ACP’s beneficiaries are young women, many of whom which have been orphaned by AIDS. Upon completion of their 10-month program, graduates move into local employment or apply for loans to start their own business.
Green Awassa Project
A collaborative effort between the Children’s Center, the Gund Institute at the University of Vermont, and the City of Awassa. The vision is to create an ecologically sustainable and economically viable community in Awassa, Ethiopia. UVM graduate students and faculty members met with American and African ecologists in an ecological focus group to discuss solutions to deforestation in the Lake Awassa basin as part of the Green Awassa Project. On the hillside of Mount Tabor, just steps from the Children’s Center, we have planted hundreds of eucalyptus and acacia trees, donated by our German partners, to help prevent soil erosion on nearly 50,000 square feet of land above Lake Awassa. We hope that our efforts will produce a truly “green Awassa” which will help lay the groundwork for a whole campaign of popular education on environmental issues throughout Ethiopia.
