Many additional projects have come online particularly with the move to make many of the Hopethiopia and Hope Rwanda projects become self-sustainable. Vermiculture, fruit orchards, coffee plantation, Income generating projects such as a bakery, kindergarten, block production, dairy, eggs, fruit, all intended to produce income to provides self sufficiency to the Hopethiopia projects.
Hopethiopia has set aside a portion of the land to build a "Peace Garden" environment. This "botanical garden" area uses permaculture principles to help restore the land and to maximize its potential. The desire is to create a very biodiverse "park" where people will appreciate the natural beauty of their country, and to relax and enjoy life.
Improving agriculural principles and practices is an important part of how Hopethiopia works alongside the local farmers to help increase productivity and create diversification.
Hopethiopia is very concerned about the local environment. The number of local wildlife species have dramatically decreased over the years and indicate a serious threat to the health of the environment.
Hopethiopia is very actively engaged in bringing back a much healthier environment through our reforestation programs. At one point in history the lands had a very healthy environment with over 50% of the land coverd by forests. Our area of Harbu Chulule would have been a semi jungle with hundreds of species of birds and animals such as cheetah's and leopards roaming the land. However, over time with massive deforestation the situation became very serious dropping down to less than 3% of forest coverage.
Hopethiopia has been very active in the area of building projects. Many structures have been built ranging from our Children's Village homes, to our Volunteer centre, to the new built Trades Training centre.
Hopethiopia is now providing veterinary care volunteer teams to the local community. Dr. Arynne from the USA has been leading up the Vet care services program to a country where the anaimals and agricultural life is vital to their existence. These services are extremely valuable to the local community.
Hopethiopia has been able to bring International health care teams to providee a wide range of health care services and training to the local staff. These services are very gratefully received since there are no local doctors available in the area. Hopethiopia is very happy to work with the local health department and health providers.
Vision is such a precious gift and Ethiopia has one of the highest incidences of blindness in the world. Trachoma is an infectious eye disease that is also extremely porevelant in our project area and is alos a great source of blindness. Since 2011 Hopethiopia has been providing free eye care through the incredible work of Ethiopian cataract surgeon Dr. Asrat.
A few times a year Hopethiopia brings international dental teams to provide dental services to the local and zonal communities. These services are very gratefully received as dental care is an extremely rare service provided to rural communities.
Education is at the very heart of what we do at Hopethiopia. This is the best way the the next generation will suceed and become the next great leaders of this country.
Water truly is the gift of life. Hopethiopia has been very blessed to have a very productive water well onsite that produces 5,000 litres per hour of fresh pure drinking water. Not only do we use the water for our many projects on the Hopethiopia land but also we give water to the community for free. So far we have given to the local community over 60 million litres of fresh drinking water for free since November 2011. We also have a water line that distributes water for free to the local Tole community to help feed their animals etc. This saves them a lot of enegry and time instead of having to walk their anaimals many km to the nearest river to receive water.
Children and house Mom's receive their support through the Hopethiopia sponsorship programs. All the basic needs for children and mothers in the Children's Village program are met such as: housing, food, clothing, education, healthcare etc.
Located at the main project site in Harbu Chulule, one will find the Hopethiopia Children's Village. Clusters of homes can be found where once orphaned and abandoned children were found. They now live in a wonderful, healthy family environemnt where they are taken care of and loved by house mom's...orphans no longer.
Hopethiopia takes on a very holistic approach with the projects in Ethiopia and Rwanda. That is why one will find a very diverse number of initiatives that we are involved in. Here are just a few programs that are ongoing: