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Intervention Areas
WeSMCO currently woks in three regions
that include:
• Addis Ababa City Administration;
• Amhara National Regional State; and
• Benishangul Gumuz National Region
State.
The organization has the future plan of expanding its interventions
to Southern Nations and Nationality People as well as Tigray National
Regional State.
Area Description
Arada
Sub-City
Arada sub city is one of the ten administrative sub cities found
in Addis Ababa, the capital city of Ethiopia and home of African
Union as well as the center for many international organizations.
Arada is the oldest of all sub cities located in the central part
of the capital. Arada has ten administrational Kebeles (district)
and the majority of the inhabitants in the sub city live under
the poverty line. Its population, which is around 500,000, is
highly dense creating overburden on the limited facilities found
in the area.
Nowadays Addis Ababa is a city of diversity, where one can see
high luxury buildings, villas and expensive cars and on the other
hand shanty houses, plastice cover shelters and street dwellers,
who are suffering from hunger, diseases, heavy showers and hail-storms.
Coupled with many other social predicaments, these problems are
very crucial in Arada.
Under these severe conditions the dwellers of Arada Sub City did
not sit idle and wait for a solution from above. Most of the communities
are organized in 360 Edirs where the members, old or young, male
or female, rich or poor, actively help each other during times
of sorrow and sickness. An umbrella organization, Edirs’
Counsel, of the 260 Ediris is also formed by their representatives
and working hard to institutionalize their activities. Likewise,
the Women and Youth of Arada Sub-City have formed their respective
associations which are based from the grassroots in the kebeles
and are members of the City’s higher Women and Youth Associations.
A number of volunteers are also organized and playing their role
in taking care of the HIV/AIDS victims, chronically sick and orphans.
Most of the inhabitants of Arada Sub City are in one way or the
other involved in organized or spontaneous activities aimed at
changing the miserable living conditions of the community.
Welfare for the Street Mothers and Children Organization (WeSMCO),
in its nine years of development intervention in Arada Sub City,
has directly or indirectly worked together with these community
based organizations. Therefore, WeSMCO has identified the poor
competence of its partners as one of its focal point and decided
to contribute for the building of their capacity in its five years
strategic plan. Hence, the implementation of this project is believed
to be one of the key result areas WeSMCO has aimed to achieve
in its five years journey.
Benishangul
Gumuz Regional State
Benishangul-Gumuz Region is one of the nine Regional states in
Ethiopia. The Region is located in the Western part of the country
and has an international boundary with the Sudan to the west and
is bordered by Amahara Region in the north and northeast, Oromia
in the southeast and south. The regional capital,
Asossa, is 687 km to the west of Addis Ababa.The region has a
total area of approximately 49,289.46 km2 with altitude ranging
from 580 to 2,731 meters above sea level (masl) 5. Annual rainfall
varies from 800 to 200 mm. The temperature reaches a daily maximum
of 12C to 20C, depending on season and altitude. Based on CSA
abstract of 2003, the total population of the region as of July
2004 is about 594,000 (49.7% female & 50.3% male), implying
a population density of 12.1 persons/km2. The average family size
in households in the region is 6. There are about 99,000 households
currently residing in the region. Of the total population, 92.2%
live in rural areas and the remaining 7.8% in the urban setting.
There are a significant number of resettlement villages in the
region. According to the current administrative structure, the
region is divided into 20 Woredas that are organized under 3 administration
Zones. Two Woredas (Pawe and Mao-Komo) are designated as special
Woredas based on their Ethic uniformity.
The regional economy depends on agriculture where 93.2% of the
economically active population is engaged. The subsidiary livelihood
sources for the population include livestock rearing, gathering
wild foods, fishing, honey production and collection, traditional
gold mining, hunting, handcrafts, petty trade and charcoaling.
Benishangul Gumuz is endowed with potential natural resources
that can be tapped for the well being of the people. The region
has large amounts of cultivable land and rich water resources
potentials. There are many perennial rivers such as Abay (Blue
Nile), Dabus, Beles, Dedessa and others that can be used for large,
medium and small-scale irrigation developments. It is estimated
that there is about 1 million hectares of potentially irrigable
land in the region. Rivers like Gilgel, Beles and Hoha have the
potential to be used for hydroelectric power generation. About
55% of the total land area of the region is covered with different
vegetation and forests. Bamboo, incense and gum trees are the
major forests types. Forests are important sources of construction
material, fuel wood and food particularly for the indigenous communities.
The sharing of an international boundary with the Sudan presents
unique opportunities to the region for linkages, trading and commercial
activities across the borer. This, however, is potential that
has not yet been developed.
Though Benishangul Gumuz has great agricultural and development
potential, it is one of the least developed regions in the country
and remains food insecure. The socio-economic conditions and health
and nutrition status of the communities are very poor; the prevalence
of malaria in particular is very serious. Degradation of forest
resources is reaching an alarming rate and many of the households
collect their water from unsafe sources. HIV/AIDS is on the increase
and the status of education across the region is also poor and
consequently the majority of people are illiterate.
Customary traditions do not give due attention to women and girls.
There is a high workload as they have limited access to improved
technologies. Their role indecision making process is very low.
Moreover, women and children are vulnerable to various kinds of
harmful traditional practices and customs. The scattered settlement
of the indigenous population is also one of the key issues impeding
development efforts in the region; hence, this has negative impacts
on service delivery and mass mobilization.Realizing such problems,
Welfare for the Street Mothers and Children has expanded its initiatives
to this remote and marginalized part of the country.
North Wollo
North Wollo Administrative Zone is one of the 11 administrative
zones in the Amhara National Regional State having coverage of
12503.31 square km. The Zone is bounded by Wag Himira Zone &
Tigiray Regional State in the north, Afar Region State in the
east, South Wollo Zone in the South and south Gonder Zone in the
west. The Zone is divided into 9 woredas including the capital
Woldia town, which are 521 kms far from Addis Ababa and 360 kms
far from the regional capital Bahir Dar.
According to the Amhara Region Information Bureau’s 2001/2002
statistical data the Zone has a total population of 1,493,229
of which 743,512(49.8%) are male and 749,717(50.2%) are, as well
as 125,114(8.4%) are urban and 1,368,115(91.6) are rural setters.
More over the zone is poor in development of infrastructure. Only
24% of the children and 43% of the total population have got access
to primary education and clinical health services as a result
the most affected victims of poverty are women and children, who
are culturally marginalized too.
Kobo Woreda is one of the nine woredas of North Wollo, which is
located 570 kms north of Addis Ababa. It has 36 rural and 4 urban
Kebeles. The chronic nature of the food-insecurity problems of
rural households in North Wollo is noticeable. The structural
and chronic causes of the recurrent food insecurity are the high
annual population growth rate of 2.23 and the overriding dependence
on rain-fed agriculture, which is characterized by shortages of
land, soil erosion and low productivity. More, due to economic
marginalization and a cultural bias against non-farm activities,
small-scale industry and commerce are poorly developed in the
area (for a more general discussion of structural factors in food
insecurity in North Wollo, cf. Sorensen 2003a). Frequently, food
insecurity caused by these chronic factors is aggravated by climatic
factors. Ethiopia is located in climatically unstable and vulnerable
regions (the Horn of Africa), with unreliable rainfall, recurrent
drought and concomitant famine.
The recent information of kobo woreda is that 63,272 people are
chronically food in secured. The government organized 38,689 of
them in safety net program to withstand this food shortage. Thus
in this woreda giving due attention for food security is the priority
of the community as well as the government. Other development
actors are also focusing to the area to bring about food security
through thier innovative project implementation.Welfare for the
Street Mothers and Children, WeSMCO has expanded its initiatives
to this part of the country.
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