Safeguarding The Orphanage

Project Goals:

• raise the posts at the top of the gate to prevent the balls from so easily flying
• replace the existing, rusted, sharp-edged fence with clean, safe new fencing to better protect the children
• replace the soccer goals and the singular basketball hoop

This is the only outside space for the children, and they use it non-stop. Many of these orphans will spend their entire childhood in this area – please help us to provide them with a safe area to spend their days.

We have spent the last ten days at Kidane Mehret orphanage in Ethiopia and have seen the approximately 65 children play soccer and basketball in the outside area of the orphanage nearly non-stop, but the existing fencing is rusted and cut with many exposed sharp areas, and the gates are pretty low. A few days ago, we tended to a 7 year-old boy who ran into the rusted goal post and had a metal chip land in his eye – it really hurt him, and even though we washed his eye out immediately, it took hours and hours for the pain to subside.

The other major issue is the metal rods of the gates are low and bent/broken apart, so the children are constantly kicking the balls they play with outside of the area, and then the little kids just slip through the open, non-fenced in gate after the ball, or the bigger kids just quickly climb over the low fence. A big issue around the orphanage is the many nearby street dogs. There are some sweet timid ones that hang close but also some very aggressive dogs nearby, too, and this is quite a dangerous threat to the kids who are always slipping/climbing out after their ball. We would like to raise the posts at the top of the gate to prevent the balls from so easily flying out in the first place, then replace the existing, rusted, sharp-edged fence with clean, safe new fencing to better protect the children. In addition, we’d like to replace the soccer goals and the singular basketball hoop, which are all currently broken, rusted and threadbare/without netting.