Project Ethiopia

Who will get concrete floors in their homes?

2 villages are completely done!

3 more villages are beginning to get concrete floors.

Concrete floors = Smart kids

Project Ethiopia decided that this was an area that needed some help and the plan was simple:
With the help of the community, Project Ethiopia would provide the cement and everyone would help in making the floors.

Where to start?

The process for deciding who gets a cement floor is simple - by lottery!

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" -

Nelson Mandela

100% of donations benefit Ehtiopian children and their families

Project Ethiopia has 501(c)(3) status

Judy & Dennis pay for all administrative and travel costs.

We buy local & hire local to benefit local economy

For as little as 7 pennies, you can help!

$4.70 for a school uniform
$1.63 for school supplies for a year
$0.07 for a bar of soap
$1 for a reading book
$35 for a triple desk
$10 for a bench
$2,300 for school well
$365 for piped water for a school well
$0.40 for drinking bottle
$12,000 for school latrine
$15 for soccer ball
$1 for jump rope
$17.50 for a white cane
$4.50 for a ream of Braille paper
$35 for a beehive
$2 for a sickle for the women or child to weed and harvest
$78 for a family latrine
$400 for a concrete floor
$2,100 for a village well

When spiders unite they can tie up a lion

- Ethiopian saying

Project Ethiopia c/o Interfaith Community Church 1763 NW 62nd Street, Seattle, WA 98107

Project Ethiopia has 501(c)(3) status so US donations are tax deductible.

The surprising health benefits of concrete floors:

Improved health among children living in homes with cement floors not only showed significantly lower incidences of diarrhea and parasitic infestations (49% and 78% reductions respectively), they also scored 36 to 96% higher on cognitive tests.

Parasites love to eat micronutrients and anemia (a shortage of red blood cells caused by a deficiency in micronutrients) is one of the main causes of delayed cognitive development.

The above information was acquired from the "Housing, health and happiness" study conducted in 2005 by Matias D. Cattaneo, Sebastian Galiani, Paul J. Gertler, Sebastian Martinez and Rocio Titiunik
(http://ipc.umich.edu/edts/pdfs/PisoFirme.pdf)

"...success can't be chalked up entirely to cement floors...they had municipal water, they had sanitation. And so this was one of the last vectors by which parasites could infest kids" explains Gertler. It's a reminder, he says that public health projects need to be approached with the entire living environment in mind. the impact of a new water treatment system, for example, could be undermined by neglecting to replace dirt floors - and vice versa.
The Mexican government is now busy implementing the program nationwide."

Representatives from a village meet at the well with a numbered list of all the families.

The numbers are written on slips of paper and put into a hat. That's Judy holding the hat while slips of paper are drawn out one at a time by someone else. The number is called out along with the corresponding name. This is repeated until all numbers have been drawn.

Adequate Housing