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Our Focus Areas
The objective of the Hope Center for Children with Disabilities is to provide a place for special care for those children who are suffering from a physical or mental disability. The Hope Center is focused on these primary areas:
Rehabilitation- These would be directives prescribed by a doctor. When the resources are available, some rehabilitation will be done in the Hope Center.
Education- Qualified teachers will work with these children with learning disabilities to help them improve their cognitive abilities to reach their full potential and reintegrate back into the public school system.
Life-skill training- How to bathe and wash your hands, and other basic life skills, will be taught to each child who enters the Hope Center.
Social skill development- How to interact with others, participate in society, and work well with others would be taught to every child who enters.
01
The Design
Completed in 2020, the Hope Center for Children with Disabilities is the fruit of countless generous donors through both financial and talent-based gifts. Serving a remote area of Ethiopia in the Afar region, it is a first of it’s kind outpost, with the goal to provide a place for special care for those children who are suffering from a physical or mental disability. While this center will not be able to care for or cure all patients it will provide a resource for the community to provide proper care for those in need.
The facility has been constructed using modern architectural techniques in conjunction with indigenous materials. A multi-structure complex comprised of dormitories for both students and parents, cooking facilities, bathrooms surround open air communal spaces. Great care was taken in the center’s design to blend structural durability with aesthetic, cultural and environmental considerations.
02
The People
GoDesign believes that educational opportunities, particularly for children with disabilities, can have a lasting impact on other areas identified as needing humanitarian assistance. As stated by UNICEF, education helps to improve health, hygiene, nutritional practices, and childcare. It is thus not only a right in itself but a means of realizing other rights”.
In many countries, children with disabilities seldom receive the educational services they need. Economic instability has often forced a reduction in services for children with disabilities. Cultural values have also impacted support for children with disabilities.
Special education provides opportunities for education for all. It is part of general education, which treats everyone involved in it as individuals. Special education identifies problems specific to individual learners and adopts relevant personnel, methods, and materials to overcome them. Special needs education ensures everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in classroom and play activities.
03
The Center
The Hope Center is a school, clinic, and dorm housing for children with physical and mental disabilities. The Center will provide a place of rehabilitation for around 50 students. The rehabilitation will focus on the three critical areas listed above. The goal for each student is to reintegrate them back into the local society and school system while helping them become productive citizens. The program provides them with training in a vocation, agriculture, and basic life skills. The Center cares for each student by providing medical care and therapy. We believe that sports will provide a great avenue for children to learn valuable skills that will help them become productive citizens and will help in rehabilitation therapy.
Sponsorship opportunities
Basic Care
Cost to support: $39/mo
Focus Care
•Life skill training, social development
Educational
•Provide educational materials and specialized educational care for the children during the rehabilitation process
Social
•Provide uniforms for the children
•Provide activities for community engagement and integration
•Lunch provided
Students to sponsor: 30
Focus Care
•Life skill training, social development
Educational
•Provide educational materials and specialized educational care for the children during the rehabilitation process
Social
•Provide uniforms for the children
•Provide activities for community engagement and integration
•Lunch provided
Students to sponsor: 30
Support This Need
Total Care
Cost to support: $59/mo
In addition to the provisions the children will receive by means of the Basic Care support level, Total Care adds:
Boarding
•Provide boarding for children needing extra care, including 3 meals per day
•3 sets of clothing, toiletries
•Focus care supplies
Medical
•Facilitate to have medical services from volunteers in Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa, and internationally
•Supplying nutritional food on a daily basis while staying at the Hope Center
•Individualized care based on each childs unique medical needs
Students to sponsor: 20
Staff
Project Coordinator
Cost to support: $300/mo, $3,600/yr
The Hope Center Project Coordinator works as the general manager of our facility, as well as the primary connecting agent between the center’s mission and GoDesign’s Ethiopian and USA offices.
Teacher
Cost to support: $200/mo, $2,400/yr
Working alongside the Program Coordinator and Nurses, Teachers develop programs and curriculum that meets the Hope Center’s students both age and developmentally appropriate. While the center’s focus on physical well-being is primary, teachers will help shape and prepare students for their transition out of the facility, and back to their communities.
Nanny
Cost to support: $80/mo, $960/yr
With the Hope Center housing up to 50 students for the fall ’22 season, a team of 5 nannies will help maintain a maxium 1:10 caretaker/student ratio, allowing ease in transition for onboarding students, and specific and well-placed care while at the facility.
Cook
Cost to support: $50/mo, $600/yr
The cook will serve the role of planning, grocery budgeting and stocking, and meal preparation for a facility full of approximately 50 students and 20 staff.
Custodian
Cost to support: $40/mo, $480/yr
While the Hope Center has been designed to withstand and interact with the local environment, the custodial staff will aid in maintaining the facility structures in the harsh Afar climate, as well as daily routine cleanliness practices.
Guard
Cost to support: $40/mo, $480/yr
Necessary to providing a stable and safe environment to children with varying special needs, a team of guards will both protect the students from neighboring dangers as well as help monitor and preserve the safety of the student body.
