On September 9, 2015, Amanda Valeur and Jennifer Carter-Scott from MCN Foundation, along with a team of dedicated volunteers, travelled to Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya to meet with MCN Foundation partners to align goals, conduct trainings and garner a greater understanding of what is possible with the Foundation’s support.
We will be posting blogs over the next few weeks of the MCN Foundation’s team travels so that we can share what the Foundation is doing to help those who do not have access to proper healthcare.
Day 4 – Ethiopian Education Foundation
Our homes are teaming with the treasures found, bought and traded along our many journeys to Africa. So on this visit we are trying to only buy things for others or items that are really commemorative of our travels. Sade has a particular passion for jewelry so we set off to find some of the most amazing silversmith items that are unique to Ethiopia. Sade is incredible in a market! The art of the deal, Sade was bargaining and walking away with some real finds.
After a morning of shopping, our afternoon was slated to see Ethiopian Education Foundation’s hostel in Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian Education Foundation (EEF) is why we at MCN, love Ethiopia. Based in London, the Ethiopian Education Foundation grants up to 20 scholarships (boys & girls) to talented, severely underprivileged children selected from across all racial and religious backgrounds. Scholarships, from MCN Foundation, include four years of fully paid tuition, for the period Grade 9-12, at the School Of Tomorrow, one of Ethiopia’s leading private schools. The scholarships also cover uniforms, books and study materials. This is not the direct work of MCN Foundation, but it is the passion for education and supporting those in need that drives our founders, our team and our mission. EEF is the reason we work hard and support the dreams of those less fortunate.
We arrived at the hostel, located in a place once surrounded by fields and grasses on the outskirts of Addis; today it is an upper middle class neighborhood where people live, play, and grow. Let me state something, which was not obvious to me; upper middle class in Ethiopia is not the same as in upper middle class neighborhoods in the US. The roads are not good, power is unpredictable, and sanitation is available but not the best. The hostel was built in 2007 and completed in 2009.
MCN Foundation, More Care Now, mission is to increase patient care and safety through web-based healthcare education, skills building and entrepreneurial endeavors in order to promote and maintain the health of families and communities. Our purpose is to educate individuals, providers and organizations in developing countries around the world through healthcare education and entrepreneurial investment in order to nurture and grow healthy families and communities.