To wrap up our in depth look at The Volusion Foundation and our partnership with World Vision, we have a series of guest blogs from Volusion CEO, Kevin Sproles, with reporting and photography by Kari Costanza and Jon Warren from World Vision. Initially, we had planned on having a single post from Kevin (after all, he is very busy) but upon his return, we quickly realized that trying to fit all of the amazing stories he witnessed into a single post would not do them justice. Below is the first of our four-part series. Thank you for joining us on this journey!

World Vision Ethiopia Boset ADP

From the moment we landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital and (at roughly 3 million people) biggest city, the word “poverty” took on a new meaning, and this was the country’s Capital city! I was nervous to think what would be waiting for us as we got to more rural areas where resources would get scarcer.

Food and Water
On our first day in Ethiopia we visited the National Office of World Vision. We met with a variety of management there including Abreham Asmare, the Associate Director for World Vision Ethiopia’s Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Program.

Children gathering water at places like these is not an uncommon sight.

More than 47 million people in Ethiopia do not have access to clean water. Abreham explained to us in detail the widespread danger of waterborne diseases, as well as quite a few examples of the success World Vision has had with their water projects in the country.

Having a clean source of water is just a dream in many places in Ethiopia. Every year in Ethiopia, about 250,000 children die because of waterborne illness and sanitation-related issues. Abraham explained that sixty percent of the total disease burden in Ethiopia is due to water and sanitation.

Ethiopia has a population of about 83 million people, 85% of whom live in rural areas. Of those living in rural areas, 90% are considered poor, only an estimated 25% have access to water, and only 8% have access to proper sanitation- the lowest figures anywhere in the world. According to the World Health Organization, waterborne disease is the world’s leading killer with an estimated 88% of that burden caused by unsafe supply, or lack of sanitation facilities. The impact is especially high in developing nations.

Due to the scarcity and demand for water, for many women and children, gathering water is so time-consuming that they are left without time for other things and is one of the reasons why so many children are unable to attend school.

Fortunately, there are a variety of solutions being invested in to get clean water including drilling wells, utilizing mechanical and electric pumps, or using natural springs and directing the water through pipes to create a variety of water points kilometers away. These are all methods being used by World Vision to provide clean and accessible drinking water to communities of 50,000+ people at a time.

World Vision, with the help of individuals and businesses, built this clean water facility.

We later met a gentleman that would be by our side the entire trip. His name was Belcha and he worked in the town of Adama, a little over an hour away from Addis. Meeting Belcha allowed us to learn a little bit more about World Vision’s irrigation project in Adama.

The Adama Irrigation Project started 15 years ago to help farmers in the community who had worked together creating a large irrigation plot to grow their crops side by side. The 140 hectare (about 35 acres) project now serves 189 households who irrigate their crops with water pumped from the Awash River.

Biru Bededa, the father of sponsored children Birtukan (14) and Gadisie (10) grows onions, green peppers, and maize on his land. In his former job working as a daily laborer, Biru only earned 2.38 birr per day (the equivalent of about 19 cents), but because of the irrigation project, Biru is now able to bring in 82.19 birr a day which is roughly 30,000 birr annually (US $2,400). While that may not sound like a lot to you or I, to those in Ethiopia, it is a windfall. “Before, this was barren land,” he says. “People were starving.”  Now Biru can feed his family and send his children to school. Their lives are truly changed as a result of this irrigation project.

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