ABOUT Abebech Gobena Children Care And Development Association (AGOHELMA) Dr. Abebech Gobena a prominent humanitarian lady was born in 1938 in the Showa province, Selale Awaraja Small rural village called Shebel. The Italian invasion killed her father when she was one month old. So she grew up in her grand parent home until she was nine. She was forced to marry when she was ten. She was not interested in her marriage and she runaway and came to Addis Ababa the capital city. Living in the city was not found simple to Dr Abebech but she didn’t give up, instead she started to challenge life inflexibly. She has been employed in different companies and established a family for the second time. Though, she has no her own child, she was leading decent family life. In 1980 she went to Gishen Mariam the holy church in Wollo for pilgrimage. During that time the area was highly stricken by drought caused famine and many people were uprooted from their home and many were dying. The horrifying incident has disturbed Abebech’s mind. She did not hesitate but started to distribute what she has. On her way of distribution Abebech observed a child sucking dead mother’s breast. She thought that the woman is in a deep sleep and tried to awake her, later she learned that the women is dead. Her soft heart pierced, she wept very bitterly and took the child from the corpse. She added another orphaned child to bring them home to Addis Ababa. This unfortunate situation in addition to her inherent sympathetic character compelled Abebech to determine her future. She continued to take more and more children and the number of orphaned children grew to twenty-one by the end of the same year. The humanitarian activity faced obstacles from the incipient stage: her husband and other relatives had refused the activity. They considered as if she got mad and they tried to advise her to stop. She had two options, to throw away the children and continue her decent married life or renew her commitment to safeguard the helpless kids and abandon her married life. Though, it seems challenging Abebech had decided to abandon her marriage and continued the lofty effort that she had started. She moved to a small poultry house with the children. She made a Medeb (bed made up of mud) to sleep and feed them under tree. It was not easy to support such a big number of children with out any source of income. In order to keep the children alive, Abebech had to sell her personal belongings including her jewelry. She had passed the first six torturous years without despair and continued taking care of the children. To support her meager income she has been engaged in selling petty items like tella, tej, injera and kollo (home made drinks and food). Abebech’s devotion and relentless effort made here known, and gradually she started to get support from individuals, government and non government organizations. In 1986 the orphanages get registered as BRUH TESFA CHILDREN VILLAGE AND SCHOOL as indigenous NGO under Ethiopian law. Later on it changed its name to Abebech Gobena Orphanage and school and currently called AGOHELMA. The humanitarian activity that was started in a poultry house by two orphaned children has immensely grown up and involved in many community development activities. To day Dr. Abebech Gobena is working as General Manager of the association agohelma.org.et/?view=featured
Posted on: Sat, 17 Aug 2013 16:04:41 +0000
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