Missionnaires of Africa
Eddie M. Ndahinda, M. Afr.
Bruh Tesfa Youth Development Centre
Adigrat - Tigray
Ethiopia
December 2009

JPIC

Some Initiatives of the Bruh Tesfa Centre in Adigrat, Ethiopia

 

Greetings from the mountains of Tigray and l. Yes, thanks to the inspirations I picked up last August in the Kampala JPIC Formation Meeting, our JPIC activities are doing well. Inspired by the "Green Team" in which I participated, together with my team here in Adigrat, we managed to set up 16 "Green Clubs" in the primary and secondary schools in and around Adigrat town in collaboration with the education bureau. In fact we planned it in such a way that the official launch of the clubs coincided with the Copenhagen conference on Climate Change.

It was a big thing and many big shots of the town administration participated in the demonstration march that we organized in town. We managed to acquire and distribute 600 green T-shirts and the streets were painted green on that day! Since then we have been able to animate the clubs with various activities like, seminars, debates and tree planting. We hope to continue with the clubs on a permanent basis. On the social front things are happening too. The following story is moving and testifies to that

In November last year, together with my co-workers we descended on Humera. Humera is a bursting town on the border with Eritrea and Sudan. Like many border towns, Humera is a mix of a small resident population and many itinerant people of all backgrounds and all in transit to somewhere else. This brings with it problems associated with drugs, alcoholism, prostitution and women trafficking. Many young girls from western Tigray also make it here searching for "opportunities" to make their lives better. We indeed met quite a few from Adigrat itself. Soldiers also abound!

We came to Humera with a mission. Two of our Bruh Tesfa Youth Development Centre young girls escaped from their homes and headed for Humera. One had "disappeared" seven months before and Meseret four months earlier. Immediately we arrived, we started the search and thank God, we got her just a few metres from our hotel. As for Meseret, we were a few days late. She had already crossed into Sudan ten days before we arrived. She herself was sad but well convinced that she could also make it after earning some money. She was honest to us; she was already ensnared in sex trade for her living. Well, after a gruelling one and a half hours of "hard talk" we managed to convince her to abandon the path she had taken. As she sobbed, we were all touched and started asking questions which seemed to have no answers. We came to learn that there were hundreds of girls like her out there. Early the next day, we drove out of Humera, and she was with us. Rough and hot as Humera may have been, we were consoled by the fact that we had rescued a young girl from the margins. Back in Adigrat, she went through medical checks and thank God she came out clean. She is now undertaking a course in hairdressing.

Eddie M. Ndahinda, M. Afr.
Bruh Tesfa Youth Development Centre
Adigrat - Tigray
Ethiopia