Berri Maida ― Pre war
Name of the organization ― Berri Maida Girls hostel and educational center
Location ― Ethiopia, Tigrai regional administration, Southeastern Zone with a planned expansion to North-west zone of Tigrai
Background ― There is global consensus on the strategic value of educating all girls in developing countries in order to build a healthy and productive community. Unfortunately, for most of rural Ethiopia, educating girls is an honorable aspiration beyond the reaches of the community. The Berri Maida project is a bold initiative by Sister Zenebu Asemahagne, aiming at minimizing the poverty related gaps in order to enable rural high school girls to continue their education, who otherwise will be forced to drop out after elementary school:
The closest high school to their villages is 30 – 50 km away, those determined would have to walk two hours one way every day to attend high school with dismal success rate. Even then exposed to all sorts of social and environmental and risking their safety and wellbeing.
This segment of the society is under huge poverty restrains. These girls cannot afford school books, hygiene products; have no change of clothes; survive on one meal a day, mostly bread. When they get home they have household chores to attend to before and after school.
These are some of the challenges that put a stop to the educational aspirations of girls in rural Ethiopia. The BerriMaida initiative aims to eliminate a major gap for girls residing in 30 – 50 km radius surrounding each of the rural district towns by building a hostel. BerriMaida Girls Hostel and educational center registered at agency for charities and societies of the federal democratic republic of Ethiopia in accordance with the charities and societies proclamation No.621/2009 with a certificate number of 3362. Once registered the organization designed a pilot project for implementation.
The pilot prototype hostel was built in Tigrai, South-Eastern zone, Seharti-Samre district. This prototype project was designed to meet the needs of high school girls, including extracurricular activities, creativity and critical thinking. The center was meant to be community and hostel residents owned and therefore one step closer to be sustained. Every thinking and effort has been invested to make this project self-sustained and replicable.
Berri Maida begun its work by soliciting contributions from individual volunteers, the private sector and of late even from the commercial bank of Ethiopia (CBE), the endowment for the rehabilitation of Tigrai (EFFORT), UNICEF and others. The place and period of onset was Seharti- Samre district, Samre town. Two years to its operation it expanded its operation to its second center at another district of the zone, Degua Tembien, the town of Hagereselam.
It is now preparing to expand its operations to another zone and have a center at the North-Western zone of Tigrai, the district of Sheraro to expand its services to girls from the minority population of the Kunama.
The Purpose of the organization ― The founding members of the organization and the founding director of the organization knew firsthand what it means to girls residing in remote villages, kilometers away from the nearest secondary school. Most rural girls may somehow complete elementary education, but to continue grades 9-12 is a huge stumbling block. To start with, the parents cannot afford to rent rooms in places where the secondary school is located. The parents also think that the girls are grown up and should be married off lest something happens to them including sexual violence at school and or on their way to from the secondary schools.
Taking into account the challenges the girls face almost ubiquitously in Tigrai and Ethiopia, the founder of the organization, Sister Zenebu, boldly launched the project with no funds at all. She talked to her close friends and they did not let her down. When she approached the district administration of her birth town, the administration championed the cause of the project and readily gave her a plot of land where she would build the hostel boarding. But the project could not wait until the hostel premises is built. It instead opted to begin providing its services at rented premises in the pilot district up until the construction of its hostel is finished. To this end it developed selection and enrollment criteria to the center, recruited students and administrators to its services and began providing its services.
Governance of the organization ― The organization in its governance structure has a general assembly, a board of governors, an executive director, and a full-fledged center management at each hostel and educational center. The organization has a 15 member general assembly and a seven member board of directors. The organization also has an executive director, who also serves as the secretary of the board ex-officio. Membership to the board of directors and the general assembly is voluntary and by cooption.
Selection of students ― The NGO rented houses for the first batch of 40 who were recruited with predetermined criteria
Remoteness from school.
Desire to continue secondary education and beyond,
Better performance in the previous grades against the odds, and
Inability to afford to rent rooms in the place where the secondary school is to be found.
The specific services the center provide to the students ― The students attend their studies in the public school available in the district. However the center provides the following services to the students so that they successfully complete their studies and become valuable citizens.
Provides the students a full board hostel
Provides students with required educational materials
Provides students cleaning and sanitary materials
Provides students with tutorial services pertinent to their level of education
The number of beneficiaries of each center ― There are direct and indirect beneficiaries of the project at each district center. The direct beneficiaries are those students that are selected and recruited to be admitted to the center for their study period and the indirect beneficiaries are those students that indirectly benefit from the activities of BerriMaida girls hostel and educational center. Each center will accommodate 160 students every year at full capacity (which means 40 each from grade 9 to grade 12).
The start of BerriMaida services in a district has several indirect benefits and beneficiaries. For example, the start of its services in Samre town is considered to have motivated rural parents to support their daughters to have more time to study and work hard so that they are admitted to BeriMaida and as a result improved the performance of the students. Moreover, the center provides gender education to community leaders as part of its outreach programs, which in turn encourages parents to send their daughters to school and provide them more time for their studies. The program when it reaches its full capacity is expected to indirectly benefit a large amount of the community.
Source of funding ― The source of funds for the organizations thus far are government bodies and non governmental bodies such as philanthropist individuals and organizations who championed the objectives of the organization. The organization has also made a fundraising event in the form of a telethon where it raised significant financial and material contributions that enabled it complete the construction of its first hostel and educational center at the town of Samre in the Seharti-Samre district of South-Eastern Zone of the regional administration of Tigrai.
Individuals who champion the causes of the center were encouraged to sponsor a girl or more at the center. Once the hostel and educational center was built the cost of maintaining a girl at the center (which means the cost of providing her food, educational and sanitary materials) was estimated at 600 Birr (approximately USD 15) per month. An individual organization and/or individual therefore sponsored a girl or a number of girls.
Once an entity or a person agrees to sponsor a girl or a number of girls, that girl or those girls are selected by the organization randomly from its admitted students. Once the selected girl reach university level they got connected to their sponsor so that she and/or the sponsor built direct family relations. Furthermore, the center provides the sponsor the study report of the student to her sponsor at the end of each academic year. However, the sponsors are not encouraged to provide extra things as far as they are at the center for reasons of equity and administration. However the sponsor can give their donations to the organization so that it equally provides it amongst the student.. Once, the students complete their high-school studies and join tertiary education the sponsors could continue supporting the student they supported complete here high school studies.
The organization follows strict public finance accounting procedures. The board of directors recruits an external auditor and presents it audit report to the board of directors and the general assembly to decide on the audited report. At the end of the year the organization provides a yearend report and an audited and board approved financial statement so that its license is renewed each year. The organization thus far has provided audited financial reports to the federal charities and societies organization for the years 2016; 2017; 2018; 2019; and 2020.
The center as part of its financial sustainability strategy has also plans towards expanding income generation activities. To this end it has an agro-processing project as part and parcel of its Samre town project. The agro-processing center has green areas with bio-diversity of indigenous plants, vegetable garden to support the nutrition of the girls and for income generating to support the self-sustenance of the hostel. The main feature of the agro-processing center will also have facilities for dairy farming and poultry to support the nutrition of the girls living in the hostel and also additional income generating purposes. The organization had also constructed a project and gave a proposal to Mekelle city. It had asked the city of Mekelle for plot of land. The project was to construct a building which will eventually be part of the income generating and self sustaining plan.
Achievement Thus Far ― The project engaged 40 students at a time in four rounds starting in 2016 and of these twenty seven were able to join the universities. Another 10 joined Technical Vocational colleges. Only three of the first batch were not able to complete the secondary Education. The second, third and fourth batch remain in the premises of BMGH in Samre.
The success story led to another opportunity. Before the launch of Beri Maida Girls Hostel, the Tigrai women's association had built a hostel with the same purpose in Hagere Selam, 50 Km north of Mekelle, capital of the Tigrai region. Somehow it did not go as planned and BMBH was invited to take over and manage it. The handover was done in 2020 and work to accept students completed. Unfortunately, the war in Tigrai broke out on November 2020, the time the organizations began the process of recruiting students and school was interrupted since then.
These achievements have now encouraged to design a project to expand its services to the Kunama minority.
The Kunama people are the smallest nationality in population size in Tigrai. They reside mainly in the district of Lower Adiabo, bordering Eritrea. The great majority of the Kunama in Eritrea are estimated 50 to 60,000. The estimated population in Tigrai is 7 to 8,000 and are scattered in Kafta Humera district (Adebai-in Hilet kuku), Adi Goshu and in Lower Adiabo near Sheraro town in Tabia Lemlem. Although the state government built primary schools enabling them as it does to use their mother tongue to, dropout rates are very high and not many girls complete secondary education. The main reason is inability to afford staying at the nearest town where the secondary school is located away from home requiring more expenses for accommodations and living costs. The need for a hostel is to circumvent that gap.
All the above were the status of Berri Maida Before the war broke out (Pre Novembe2020).