Auction 4 Change

Our goal is to build 4 girls bathrooms, within the next year, at schools in the Somali region of Ethiopia. This will remove one of the barriers that is preventing girls from attending school and hopefully lead to higher enrollment rates for girls. Having a bathroom at school will also make them feel more welcome at school and help to maintain their hygiene. There are actually more than 30 schools that require bathrooms but we can only help a few at a time.

Education 4 Change is a non-profit, grassroots organization that is based in Waterloo, Ontario. We work in partnership with the communities in the Somali Region of Ethiopia to improve their education, increase literacy and promote gender equality.

Schools in the Somali Region of Ethiopia often employ unqualified teachers, are too small for their student population and they lack the necessary resources to educate their students properly. There are also not enough high schools in the region meaning that students wanting to get an education above grade 8 must leave their villages and travel to another community, sometimes several hours away.

Another issue in this area is the low number of girls that are attending school and the even lower number that are successful at school. Many girls are not given the opportunity to go to school because they have to help out at home with siblings and household responsibilities. Other girls who do get the chance to go to school are forced to drop out due to childhood marriages or they are not successful because their duties at home do not leave them time for school work. Another obstacle is the fact that many schools do not have a girls bathroom. So if girls do choose to go to school they must go the entire day without using the bathroom.

Our projects include a permanent library, a mobile resource teacher, adult literacy classes, teacher training sessions and making improvements to the infrastructure of local schools, such as building girl's bathrooms.

To make a donation or to learn more about our programs please visit www.education-4-change.org.