Our vision

Our concern

Education can change people's lives. It is an asset to which every human being should have a right, far away from the respective life situation. With our association we would like to make a contribution to our basic opinion. The focus is not on the academization of children, but rather on the possibility of leading a self-determined life: Education should give them the skills they will need later to achieve their own goals.

How do we put our cause into practice?

KaJo e.V. is a small non-profit association based in Nürtingen. The board consists of idealistic students. In the capital of Ethiopia, Addis Ababa, the association supports poor families from the outskirts of the city by financing the education of children at the private school Future Generation Hope.

In the meantime, we are sponsoring the education of six children at this school:

Mahilet (born in 2007), Joseph (born in 2008), Kalkidan (born in 2004), Hilina (born in 2004), Bruke (born in 2002) and Feraywet (born in 2000). A total of six sponsors and more than 30 members support us in this project. The board travels to Ethiopia at least once a year to pay for the school education. The costs for a sponsored child are between 350 and 550 Euro per year, whereby we not only pay the school fees, but also the transport costs, the school uniforms and school materials. On site, our confidants Biruh and Kibret work for us. We are in close contact with them. In order to maintain an adequate overview of the motivation and success of our children, we receive regular reports on the situation on site.

The criteria according to which the children are accepted into our support programme are deliberately kept open. We are reluctant to assess the well-known criteria of performance and motivation on the basis of school grades. Of course, it is important for us that the children perform well, but these are not the primary criteria, but rather the fascination with education and the resulting opportunities to be awakened. The primary criterion for admission is getting to know the children and their families. We receive suggestions for families worthy of support from Kibret and Biruh, followed by a personal meeting of the children and their families. Only then do we decide for or against admission.

Why Ethiopia?

Although Ethiopia has 10 years of compulsory schooling, the Ethiopian school system is very backward. Almost all Ethiopian children start primary school, but only about 38 percent of students finish it (World Bank, 2014). Only 38.4 percent receive secondary education and 7.3 percent of young Ethiopians attend university (Federal Foreign Office, 2015). This is due on the one hand to a lack of capacity and on the other hand to the lack of qualifications among most school leavers. They often leave school very early because they have to help the family or see no sense in the poor quality of their school education - often due to lack of funds for teaching from very old books or because the teachers lack the necessary training. Attending a private school is a good alternative here, as such schools offer a much better degree and often make it possible to finish school in the first place. In this way, young people are given the opportunity to shape their future freely and even to attend a university afterwards. By sponsoring a school at KaJo e.V. you enable a child from the poorest backgrounds to have a better future.