The newly built library - adorned with a "Thank You" message from the students.

The Mekele Blind School in northern Ethiopia is a boarding school for approximately 90 blind boys and girls, ages 6-15. With the highest rate of preventable blindness in Africa, Ethiopia has a great need for this little school. Conditions at the school are extremely harsh. The students are malnourished as a result of their poor, meager diets. There are few learning materials and only one qualified teacher. There is no health care for the children. If students become ill, they are sent home and often may not return to the school. Security is a serious problem, but we recently completed the stone security wall that had been abandoned by the Ethiopian government years ago. The children are now more secure from assault (especially the girls) and theft.

The Mekele Blind School students are a terribly neglected group of intelligent children, eager to learn anything someone might be willing to share. We learned this, and much more about heart, during a recent trip there.                                                                                   

We are a small, grassroots organization comprised of friends from both the United States and Ireland. A group of 8 of us, 5 from the US and 3 from Ireland, just returned to our respective homes after working at the school for 2 weeks. During this past year, we raised enough money to build a small yet splendid library and a small, medical clinic. We have just begun to fill the library with Braille books by posting them through the mail, and we left the clinic stocked with the basic medical supplies a boarding school might need.  We have hired a sighted librarian, and an older blind student as the library assistant. Also, we have hired a full-time nurse to see to the children’s health concerns.

We thank you for visiting our website, and feel certain that you will enjoy meeting the wonderful children at the Mekele Blind School as you peruse the pages here. Please feel free to contact us at anytime if you are able to donate Braille materials, medical supplies, or, of course, money. 

Chris Hanley

info@mekeleblindschool.org

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