Meet Sammy

Sammy grew up in one of the poorest sections of Addis Ababa. You can read his story at http://www.sacredfight.com/post/Korah-e28093-The-Cursed-People-of-Ethiopia.aspx.

Sammy agrees to give us a tour of his community called Korah. This community of 75000 is home to people who are outcasts because of leprosy or hiv/aids. Literally, other Addis citizens we talked to later in the week would barely acknowledge that this community exists.

Sammy gives us a tour of the ALERT hospital where patients can come to receive treatment.

We visit the sheds where women spin cotton into yarn, weave yarn into cloth, and handstitch beautiful designs onto the cloth.












Back outside we walk past a man weaving banana leaves into door mats. This man lost his fingers to leprosy. He has been weaving mats here for 40 years. (Of course we have to buy one of his mats...it's now on our front doorstep.)

We tour Bright Hope School which educates 2200 students from the community. A team from Harvest Church recently came here to build a badly needed wall for the school which will help protect the children and the school grounds. We take a look at the wall - not much progress has been made on it since the team left. We greet some of the students and take some pictures. They always want to see their picture after we take it.

Many of these students have trouble learning because they are not getting enough to eat. The community has one church, Victory Church. This church received a donation of $750 from a woman in N Carolina. With the money, Victory Church was able to build a room to meet in AND provide lunch every day for 65 Bright Hope kids. We happen to be there at lunchtime, so we helped and watched as these 65 kids were served a BIG healthy lunch.













After lunch, the kids walk back over to the school and we tour the home of a woman who attends Victory Church. The 3 small rooms are shared by eight families.

During the rainy season, the water runs right through this home. The people wrap themselves in plastic to stay dry. But these families are happy to have a roof over their heads. The less fortunate actually live at the trash dump. The people wait for the dump truck to come and swarm it as they search for food. Sometimes babies are left here – at the dump.

Sammy has started a program to help kids get out of the dump. For $600 a year, one child will be rescued from the dump and placed in boarding school where he or she will receive food, shelter, education…and hope.