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NEWS FOR WELLWISHERSWould you like to receive our quarterly email newsletter?
Partnership the key to success Our key partners: The Relief Society of Tigray (REST) and communities in Tigray Over my 44 years of involvement in "overseas aid", mainly in Africa, I have come into contact with hundreds of overseas aid agencies and local groups engaging in helping poor communities. The spectrum of activities ranges from urgent relief work in disaster situations to long-term training and education programs or resource provision. Clear to me is that the success of development work in poor communities is the involvement of a community-based organisation in the field, able to define community needs and a strategy for change. Outside agencies may have good ideas and resources to offer, but in my long experience externally driven change will not bring about long-term development. REST: The Relief Society of TigrayREST was formed in 1978 to provide food aid to vulnerable communities, bringing food across the border from Sudan into western and central Tigray. Australia's Community Aid Abroad (CAA) funded the purchase of a 10-tonne truck for REST in 1978. REST's work soon spread to support communities with health centres and very basic schools.
Training village women for repair and maintenance of their community well pump The 'Great Famine'During the 'Great Famine' of 1984/85, REST took on the task of supporting the millions in Tigray Region who were being denied humanitarian assistance from the Ethiopian government. The national government was once again using food (or the denial of it) to pursue its campaign against the people of Tigray who wished to see the end of military rule.
Mereseit Gebru at the Mai Tabaq well, Samre district REST mobilised international assistance to support the long trek of hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans to refugee camps in Sudan, and their subsequent return while also supporting Tigrayans to stay in safer villages. It was in these 'rebel' held areas REST was able to begin its work in agriculture. With support from Community Aid Abroad, REST began its long journey into provision of village water supplies through the low-tech method of 'hand-dug' wells. Over the next eight years a highly organised and capable Water Department in REST was created. Today REST's water group has expanded its work to deep borehole drilling, solar powered water reticulation and irrigation schemes. But our WellWishers hand-dug wells program in remote villages continues as a key component, supporting health through clean water and reducing women and girls' labor in water collection. Small loans for farmersREST's program in the management of natural resources - soil and water conservation, catchment management, and irrigation schemes - has flourished. Rehabilitation of degraded environments has been achieved in large areas through terracing, tree planting and gully erosion control. Seed distribution has been a critical part of the food security program. I will always remember the woman farmer at Quiha near Mekelle in the late 1980s who was harvesting a crop of wheat. When I asked her where the wheat seed had come from she told me she had kept back a small proportion of Australian wheat supplied through REST as food aid and planted it! In 1994 REST established the Dedebit Credit and Savings Institution to provide small loans for farmers for the purchase of farm animals and chickens or for the start of small businesses. It has 500,000 clients and is the fourth largest microfinance institution in Africa. REST has a highly skilled and dedicated staff and remains the key local non-government agency (NGO) in Tigray, fully in touch with Tigray's rural communities. 2024 is my 40th year of close association with REST. I can say without qualification that of the scores of NGOs I have worked with in Africa, REST has been outstanding in its relations with communities, with its reliability in program delivery and accountability. Graham Romanes, Trustee and Honorary Manager, WellWishers Trust Please dig deep now. We have an enormous task of rebuilding in front of us. Every dollar you can send will make a difference. Our friends in Tigray have been through hell, let's help them on their journey to a better place. THANK YOU! Please click here to continue reading more of the story in our latest Newsletter. We will issue receipts for tax deductible donations, covering the whole of the tax year, early in July. Thank you again for all your wonderful support! If you need a receipt and do not receive one, please contact us on info@wellwishersethiopia.com or phone on 0419 559 138 Donate nowOptions for your donation are listed at the end of each Newsletter. Alternatively you can click here to donate now.
Borehole repair (charity:water)
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