Ciara Halpin’s Ethiopian Trek 2016 Facebook: Africa-Foundation /timeline Website:

 On Friday 18 th March 2016, Ciara Halpin flew from Dublin to Addis Ababa, capital of Ethiopia Ciara came home to Ireland in 2008 along with her friend, Alice O’Leary. Now Ciara and Alice return to help the Support Africa Foundation

 On Saturday we visited the Support Africa Centre in Aleltu, in the Oromia province, about 1½ hours drive from Addis The Irish Ambassador to Ethiopia performs the official opening Welcome party

 On Sunday we flew from Addis to Mek’ele, capital of the Tigray region, then a long bus journey to the city of Adigrat, near Eritrea Adigrat

 On the way to Adigrat we visited one of Ethiopia’s famous “rock-hewn” churches The Church of “Abreha wa Atsebha” is carved into a cliff face

 We saw local people and wildlife… Very rare Ethiopian Gelada Baboon Rare Ethiopian Gelada Baboon found only in the Ethiopian Highlands

 … some amazing scenery

 … and some very high mountains on our travels

 On Monday we visited the Green Park Mall & Training Centre in Adigrat and met the mothers; ~1,000 have been trained to date The shop units

 Older kids from local schools come to the training centre to learn English, study in the library and have fun …

 We were welcomed at the child care centre where 150 children are being cared for and educated

 We brought with us, from Ireland, 75 suitcases of clothes and toys for the children and their families Unpacking

 We spent our days with the children….

 … working and playing with them,

 …teaching them songs, arts and crafts, and dancing Teaching the children to play the tin whistle …and some song and dance

 Building a patio We also worked in the gardens, weeding and planting, and building a patio Add before picture for patio

 We took time out to visit the local animal market in Adigrat

 On our the last day, the children got dressed in their new clothes … Arts & Crafts

 … as a surprise for their mammies

 That night they held a party for us celebrating Ethiopian custom

 On Thursday we flew back to Addis and visited the Irish Ambassador at his residence Add picture with Deseglen

 On Friday, our last day, we did some site seeing around Addis and visited “Lucy”, one of the oldest human fossils

 Ciara raised €6,000 of the €75,000 raised by the Trek. This will be invested directly (and entirely) in Ethiopia including;  Fitting out a new classroom in the Aleltu centre  Further development of the Green Park training facility;  Building a model hotel bedroom, kitchen and reception area to train the ladies in hotel and catering skills  Extending the library where older children from local schools come to learn English  Further development of the child care centre Thank You for your generous support and contributions

 Additional Information

 Some facts about Ethiopia  Population – 90 million (~5 million in Addis Ababa).  Year – 2008 (Ethiopia follows the pre Gregorian calendar and is thus eight years behind us!).  Time – daybreak is 1 o’clock.  Months of the year – there are 13 months, 12 of equal length (30 days) and one small month of 5 days (6 in a leap year).  Religion – predominantly orthodox Christian.

 Although things have improved a lot for people living in Ethiopia it is still very different to life here in Ireland  It is likely that a person will live for 20 years less  9/10 people do not have electricity at home or at least not a reliable supply  A person is 30% more likely to be unemployed  A person with a job earns about 4% of what we earn in Ireland  Only 1/3 rd of children aged 4 – 7 go to school If we lived in Ethiopia