Building a Legacy July 2019

July Update

Raining here and raining in Ethiopia. The fact is it’s the Ethiopian rainy season and it’s just plain old summer in the UK.

Despite the rain, tree planting has been happening across Ethiopia. To combat deforestation, Ethiopians have planted more than 350 million trees have been in under 12 hours. The campaign called ‘Green Legacy’ has been spearheaded by the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed .

This month, I’ve ‘unwittingly’ ended up as a radio and media star. In July, I gave radio interviews with Stray FM and Radio York. A wee bit scary but hopefully got our message out. I also gave press interviews for the Nidderdale Post and The York Press. 

Fundraising continues to take up a lot of time. Only this week, Accrington Rotary Club have very kindly donated £1,000 towards our project. It was good to be back on home territory when I recently gave a presentation to the club. 

Ripley Live has also agreed to show a film from which we can raise donations. The film will be The Favourite at Ripley Town Hall on Friday October 4th at 8pm. 

Progress with the school building (phase 1) has slowed slightly due to a contractor issue but we are moving forward again. We still hope to have four new classrooms up and running by the beginning of October which is when Ethiopian school starts a new school year.

I am in the middle of completing my Teaching English as a Foreign Language Course. My goodness it’s been hard work-so much grammar to learn and I’m English! Hopefully I will be able to teach in Ethiopia once I can remember the past continuous participle!

Sue Eland, July 2019