Berhan Lehetsanat

2017 Annual Report

Berhan Lehetsanat

Message from the Board Chair Person

Dear All.

As Chairperson of the Board of Directors of Berhan Lehetsant it is my privilege to present the Fiscal Year 2017 Annual Report. I am humbled and honored to work alongside a group of dedicated board members and the exceptional leadership team of BL and its staff to serve children with and without disabilities.

No year is without its challenges, and this one certainly had its share. Funding for development programs continue to be impacted by low response to most appeals and high volatility. Despite these challenges, BL remains focused on its long-term strategy of high commitment to efficiency and effectiveness. Several factors contributed to our success last year.

The talent and experience of the teams we have in place across the organization coupled with the vision of our Board support our success in being a responsive and responsible development organization. I believe strong and effective governance leads to better decisions and that effective Board oversight is vital to our success.

Members of Berhan Lehetsanat Board of Directors are maintaining their commitment to best governance practices.

We had a very successful year, establishing strong partnership with communities, government organizations and donors. We are deeply committed to continuing and building upon our support of the children with disabilities and their care givers.

2017 has been a year of tremendous work for our management and employees, who contributed with a high degree of motivation and dedication to further, develop BL. I thank them for their daily efforts. I also thank our donors & partners for their ongoing support and trust in our longstanding relationships. We also extend our thanks to our stakeholders who repeatedly foster our common vision.

Sincerely,

St. Dehne Mengiste Board Chairperson

1 2017 Annual Report Berhan Lehetsanat Message from the Executive Director

Dear partners and friends of Berhan Lehetsanat

This is the time of year where we take a moment to evaluate our success over the past year and identify areas where we can improve. While the external environment for nonprofit organizations remains a very challenging one in 2017, I have witnessed our organization members come together and show resilience, determination and a shared sense of purpose, working effectively as a unified voice for supporting vulnerable children in general and children with disabilities and girls in particular. I am proud to celebrate these achievements of BL and continued progress in the pursuit of improved programs for the thousands of Ethiopian children who live with disabilities.

As a development organization, BL’s primary goal is to design and implement community based programs that will effectively benefit children with disabilities, girls and their parents/guardians. In this regard we recognize our obligation to develop standard programs, policies and practices that facilitate the effective and efficient delivery of services.

As you read the report, I hope you will gain insight into the breadth and depth of our activities. As the director of BL, I pledge to continue the quest for greater knowledge, better programs, and enhanced capacity on behalf of every child and adult impacted by physical or developmental disability keeping them from optimal growth and development. The accomplishments of 2017 and the works ahead depend on the support and contributions of our partners and dedicated staff. Therefore I am highly grateful to those partner organizations and individuals whose energy and support continued to sustain us.

Finally I want to assure our stakeholders that our focus is to seek and continuously improve our organization, to concentrate primarily on those who benefit from our programs and services, and then measure the results of our efforts. We are always keen to receive your supports in any form so that we can help more children with and without disabilities and their parents/guardians to be empowered and get out of social and economic deprivation.

Thank you and I look forward to another amazing year at BL.

Etenesh W/Agegnehu

Executive Director

2 2017 Annual Report Berhan Lehetsanat Introduction Berhan Lehetsanat (BL) is an indigenous nonprofit Ethiopian Residents Charity organization established in 1997 working to address the multi dimensional perils faced by marginalized and vulnerable children in general and children with disabilities in particular. Its program implementation gives special focus on girls through a holistic approach.

Organizational To enhance the capacity of Children with Disabilities, other vulnerable children & their parents/guardians to support themselves Objective through quality & holistic community based interventions.

BL desires to see Children with Disabilities & Other vulnerable OUR VISION children empowered and be productive.

BL enhances the capacity of CwDs, other VC and their parents/ guardians to support themselves through quality and holistic OUR MISSION community based interventions with in an inclusive socio-economic environment.

All programs of BL are coordinated through the Head Office situated in while projects implementation is managed by area project offices at Aykel (North Zone), (South Wollo Zone), Bishoftu and .

This is the 2017 accomplishment report of Berhan Lehetsanat prepared for January to December 2017. During the reporting period BL has planned and implemented a total of 28 projects distributed in more than 16 Woredas found in Addis Ababa, & Amhara National Regional States.

The implementations of these planned projects have benefited a total of 119,688 beneficiary populations with a total budget expenditure of 12,364, 415 Ethiopian Birr.

Organizational Strategies BL gives due emphasis on the enhancement of wide reaching awareness creation towards prevention of disability and decrease children vulnerability together with provision of rehabilitative support to Children with Disabilities and Other Vulnerable Children.

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The organization also uses various trainings and workshops as a mechanism to inform stakeholders for mainstreaming of the issues of disability, HIV/AIDS, child protection and institutionalize provision of disability and child friendly service delivery.

In addition BL builds the economic capacity of children’s families, youths with/without disabilities, technical and material capacities of partner governmental institutions, community based structures and schools towards the effectiveness of all project implementation and achievement of the expected results.

Organizational Values

1. Inclusiveness 2. Participation 3. Accountability 4. Protection 5. Transparency 6. Excellency 7. Learning 8. Integrity 9. Impartiality

Programs In the year 2017 Berhan Lehetsanat has managed to implement its planned program activities guided by its Strategic Plan. The implemented programs include Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) of CwDs, Create Access to Inclusive Education for CwDs and Other VC, Yekokeb Birhan Program for HVC Care and Support, From Childhood to Livelihood (FCTL), Enhancing the Capacity of Women and Girls (ECWG) in the target project areas

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Core Programs

Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) Enhancing the Capacity of Women & Girls (ECWG) Access to Education for CwDs Capacity Building of CwDs & Vulnerable Community Groups

Almost all the programs were implemented with active participation of stakeholders including parents of Children with Disabilities and OVC, Government stakeholders, Higher Education Institutions.

The activities contributed to the national development plans of GTP-2, promotion of Inclusive Education and other global development agendas & targets.

Target Communities The programs of BL focus in addressing all community members in the operational areas by giving special emphasis to children with disabilities and their parents, OVC/HVC and their parents, community based structures, students, teachers’ community leaders, religious leaders. Furthermore, various institutions like schools, teacher’s colleges, government offices, CBOs, DPOs and the like have benefited from the program.

2017 Plans Prevention of 53,768 Children & communities from Disability and other vulnerability.

Rehabilitation of CwDs and other VC 3,375 CWDs & OVCs.

Promotion of Inclusive Education for 40,918 CwDs and other VC community, teachers and children.

Livelihood Empowerment for 777 CWDs and other VC parents.

Review & develop policies & procedures,Set up the necessary systems,structures & avail necessary equipment and facilities.

5 2017 Annual Report Berhan Lehetsanat 2017 Major Accomplishments In the year 2017 BL has implemented the following major projects in Addis Ababa, Bishoftu, Hawassa, Dessie & Chilga.

Prevention of Children from Disability & Other Vulnerability BL has been working to raise the awareness of the community using various techniques and in 2017 it has reached an estimated number of 67, 490 community members through different program activities.

Trainings 1,359 community members from Community leaders, FBOs, CBOs and other community members have actively participated in the trainings programs designed to raise awareness on prevention, care and support for child disability and other vulnerability programs.

Several community discussion forums and dialogue programs have been held with 2,533 community members on child disability prevention, care, support, early identification, cultural and religious myths attached to disability and related issues by organizing Traditional Coffee Ceremonies.

During the reporting period 2 trainings were organized for partner government office staffs, especially women and children affairs office staffs, with the objectives to build and strengthen partnership among offices towards HTP prevention and reduction activities and to capacitate the women on implementation of HTP activities at different levels. The effort has attracted 214 government line department representatives drawn from 17 sector offices to commit in supporting the initiative.

BL facilitated sign language training for 36 days to 20 local government sector office experts.

Brail reading and writing trainings were conducted for 15 blind community members for 60 days in collaboration with pertinent local government sector office, Labor and Social affair office, and Association for the Blind.

Community Conversation (Dialogue) & Experience Sharing on HTP 72 community conversation programs were conducted in 12 kebeles for a total of 3,552 community members.

Some individuals and villages with good experiences in the prevention of harmful traditional practices in 12 kebeles of Hawassa project have shared their experiences facilitated by Hawela Tulla sub-city women and children affairs office. A total of 89 participants attended the experience sharing session.

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Different project Support committees share experiences from one another on the disability prevention and care area whereas Community Committee Coalitions (CCCs) shared experience on coordination of care for other VC. A total of 368 committee members were addressed by the sessions.

Capacity Building In order to maximize their participation on disability prevention, care and support activities in the community, offices like health, education, women, youth and children, finance and economic development, partner CSOs and CBOs were the main focus of this platform, as they have a direct involvement in various community development initiatives in all BL’s target intervention areas. The program has addressed 422 participants from all project areas.

Mainstreaming through media programs Radio programs supported by Berhan Lehetsanat have continued to raise the awareness of the community through widening coverage during the reporting year. Such programs are normally assumed to reach at least one percent of the population of the coverage area. As a result, Senay radio program transmitted on Hawassa FM 100.9 has continued to address various disability issues reaching at least 30,000 people.

A weekly program on various disability issues on Abay FM radio in Addis Ababa has been transmitted for 4 months. The program believed to have reached 50,000 people within 100 km radius of Addis Ababa.

Celebration of Events In collaboration with concerned government offices at respective project site, various events were organized, including world disability day, world day of the woman, day of the African Child, World HIV/AIDS day, where different issues were addressed like child and women betterment, disability mainstreaming and inclusion of CwDs in all aspects of life.

Joint Forums & Consultative Meetings Regular joint forums and consultative meetings in which 263 participants were in attendance of the discussion forums from government and non-government organizations thereby contributed their own share for the success of respective projects in BL’s target areas.

7 2017 Annual Report Berhan Lehetsanat Preventive Health BL’s health program component focuses on prevention activities such as immunization, sanitation and health information, which contribute in keeping all community members healthy and also directly reduce the prevalence of disability that arise from poor health care.

Training & Awareness Raising BL has organized and provided continuous awareness raising sessions and trainings on environmental/household sanitation and personal hygiene to a total of 398 female participant CwDs’ families and other vulnerable female community members.

BL organized and provided capacity building trainings for 170 Health Extension Workers, health supervisors, community volunteers and its CBR Care Givers on the CBR principle and practice.

Berhan Lehetsanat is working on RH and HIV/AIDS due to its nature of comprehensiveness of its projects. To this end 84 mothers have formally attended two days training on reproductive health, HIV and disability.

Vaccination Campaign BL has provided support for local health offices at its project sites that helped the offices to widen child vaccination coverage. As a result of the support children below the age of 5 were vaccinated with various vaccines based on their age. A total of more than 4,000 children below 5 years of age accessed vaccination during the reporting period.

VCT Demand Creation Different awareness raising programs were undertaken for targeted community groups on HIV’s impact on the overall development issues and the need for behavioral changes towards practices that may expose to HIV infection. In this reporting year a total of 873 community members have voluntarily tested and knew their HIV status. Consequently, among those who were tested 31 parents/care givers and children were found to be Positive and BL has facilitated and created linkage with health offices & put them on free ART and PMTCT services.

8 2017 Annual Report Berhan Lehetsanat Rehabilitation of CwDs & Other VC Provision of Medical & Referral Services BL has integrated the provision of medical service to its target children. BL’s medical care and support service focuses particularly on treatment to minimize the level/impact of impairment for CwDs while minimize the impacts diseases and injuries on the health of Other VC benefiting178 Children with Disabilities in the reporting period. The progress seen in these children also enhanced the participation of parents of CwDs in the rehabilitation service.

In addition a total of 245 Other VC has accessed medical service support for various illnesses they encountered and treated accordingly.

Provision of Appliance for CwDs The provision of appliance support for CwDs is mainly based on the type and severity/level of their disability. In the reporting period, a total of 86 CwDs have benefited from the provision and maintenance of appliances support.

Provision of Physiotherapy Service BL provided the necessary rehabilitation service in their homes with an active involvement of parents for a total of 174 children. The activities are jointly planned by parents and care givers accompanied by evaluation of the progress and adjustment of the plan based on the specific need of the child.

A total of 76 mothers/family members of CwDs were trained on physiotherapy skill so that they can sustain the rehabilitation activities of their child by their own.

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Home Based Rehabilitation & Psychosocial Support

Other VC and their care givers have been provided with counseling and guidance support from project staffs and community volunteers to a total of 449 CwDs in all BL project areas.

Skill, Literacy & Numeracy Trainings The other main activity focusing on Children with Intellectual Disability is the living skill development and vocational training. 55 Intellectually Disabled (ID) Children have regularly attended various daily living and vocational skills trainings, at BL center for the ID’s in Addis Ababa and Dessie, which helped them, be independent in doing their daily routines.

Vocational & Daily Living Skill Training

Reducing Physical Barriers During the reporting year 15 CwDs have got better access to their living environment, improved access towards social services and also protected from being vulnerable to further disability.

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Before After

Supplementary Food Support BL has supported 278 HVC, with the lowest household economy, by providing food support. In addition capacities of parents were built on appropriate ways of child rearing and parenting skills. A total of 182 volunteers who have trained on the issues have mentored more than 653 households of the target children.

Family Reunification, Foster Care and kinship care During the reporting period a total of 52 children were able to be reunified with their families. The reunification follow up has also been facilitated to the reunified HVC and made sure that they remain with their parents.

House Renovation Towards improving the living standard of VC and their parents BL projects have facilitated and secured improved shelter for a total of 10 VC and their guardians. Hence, they became psychologically rehabilitated. As a result their participation and inclusion in their community was enhanced.

Vocational Training and Resource Center Construction BL managed to finalize the first phase of the construction of the vocational training and child resource center in Bishoftu Town (Bishoftu project site) and received 1,500 square meter of land for similar construction in Hawassa Town.

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Strengthening Networks & Discussion Forums During the reporting budget year BL has Strengthened 3 Child referral networks in Bishoftu, Hawassa & Dessie via organizing and creating various consultation and discussion forums and workshops among service providers, key stakeholders working on children issue.

Promotion of Inclusive Education for CwDs & Other VC BL’s Education program focus in contributing to the national efforts towards realization of inclusion of CwDs and other vulnerable children in schools where they can get education based on their needs and potential.

Provision of Educational Materials The educational materials supports to help the children not only to continue their education but also reduce the economic burden of their parents and spend part of their income to fulfill other household needs was provided to 2,383 CwDs and Other VC. Furthermore, 30 children attending special education in boarding schools were provided with the necessary materials based on their disability, tuition fee and transportation and continued their education.

FAL program Functional Adult Literacy program has been provided at the women and girls resource center constructed by BL and operational since 2015. During the reporting year, the program was provided to 103 women in two sections.

Tutorial Service The tutorial program was provided for children in selected and critical school grades of 8,9,10 & 12. The school grades were selected for the following basic reasons. Grade 8 was selected because it is the time to prepare the children for their secondary school entrance; grade 9 to acquaint the children with their first year of high school; grade 10 to prepare the children to qualify for either college preparatory or vocational education courses; and grade 12 to support the children pass the national college entrance examination.

In the reporting year a total of 1,484 target beneficiaries in 13 primary and 1 secondary schools have benefited from the program.

Counseling & Sanitary Material service Psychosocial support was one of the major services for parents and children, especially for females. The service focusing on HTP has been provided to 253 women & school girls who went to the women and girls resource center seeking professional counseling support.

The same service was provided to 1,002 other Vulnerable Children and their care givers. Different sanitary materials have been provided to 952 girls, which prevented school absenteeism.

12 2017 Annual Report Berhan Lehetsanat Training for BL Supported School Teachers BL has systematically planned and provided various trainings on inclusive education and special needs education, active learning, teaching method on inclusive classrooms for teachers and education officers. In the reporting period 194 teachers and education sector leaders/experts from BL supported schools have attended the trainings.

Training on material production BL has organized special training, for Special need education teachers of its target schools, that focused on practical aspect on how to produce and use of teaching aids by means of locally available material in collaboration with government education department.

During the reporting period a total of 32 participants from all cluster centers supported by BL projects attended and actively participated.

Special Need Education Materials Support During this reporting period, special need education material supports were provided to 12 targeted schools serving as a cluster center so that they can accommodate the increasing flow of children with special needs to their school directly and also serve as a resource center for other nearby satellite schools. Thus slate, stylus, abacus, cane, audio recorder, puzzles and sign language educational supportive materials that will help children with visual impairment, hearing impairment and intellectual disabilities were provided.

Capacity Building of higher institutions & Universities BL has been working with Hawassa TTC for a couple of years and achieved a number of results that directly contributed for the achievement of both organizational and program objectives of BL. During the reporting year the resource center of the college has been equipped with inclusive teaching aid materials that enabled teacher trainees to practically use the material during their training.

BL has scaled up the best practice/learning of such intervention to other project area, Amhara Regional State Dessie Town, and started to work with Dessie College of Teachers Education (DCTE). Consequently, BL has jointly organized inclusive education forum with DCTE, aiming to share and learn best practices and achievements on promotion of inclusive education intervention to scale up the initiative to Dessie project.

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Hence, a total of 19 (16 male, 3 female) participants, from DCTE Administrative staffs, academic committee members, special needs department teachers and also other concerned education officials, travelled to Hawassa and attended a four days program. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the parties for joint work on the issue of promotion of inclusive education.

School Accessibility to CwDs One of the priorities that is expected to fulfill for the realization of inclusive education is removing physical barriers and adjust to meet the needs of CwDs. In all BL supported schools enabling their physical environment is one of the basic activities that has been implemented in close collaboration with schools and education offices of the respective project areas. During the reporting year, CwDs’ accessibility to class rooms, and other school facilities, including latrine, has improved in 14 target schools due to construction of adaptable toilets and ramps.

Strengthening PTAs BL has been working with some target schools in strengthening the structure known as Parent, Student & Teachers Association that works towards improving access and quality of education of their respective schools for vulnerable children especially CwDs and girls, their inclusion and enhancing the participation of various actors in the school improvement activities. In this regard BL has been working to fill the gap of target school PSTAs through joint collaboration and joint planning. In this regard BL has provided technical and material support to 5 target school PSTAs that improved their capacity of joint planning and implementation of activities that goes in line with their roles and responsibilities.

Material Support for School Clubs School Clubs are expected to play significant role in changing the perceived negative attitude of the community on disability in general and CwDs in particular.

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In the reporting period, 11 school clubs like inclusive club, girls club, etc.. were established and strengthened based on the specific plan of the projects. The clubs were provided with DVD, horn speaker microphone, and stationery materials as well as training on various issues including inclusive development and leadership, disability prevention, care & support and basic life skills. Hence, the technical capacities of the members have been strengthened with noticeable proactive role in raising the awareness of their school community.

Livelihood Empowerment BL has managed to implement various activities that contributed to change the lives of the target groups.

Entrepreneurship Skill Training To rehabilitate children with disabilities, their mothers and sisters have started to work jointly with rehabilitation workers of the organization. In line with this, 522 Parents/Guardians of CwDs, OVC, and HTP practitioners were selected trained and organized under saving and Credit Associations/ Groups.

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All the organized associations/groups were provided with revolving fund as seed money and created easy access to credit service to their members and enable them to start their own petty business in their respective villages.

Vocational Skill Training In addressing skills development and livelihood needs of youth and adults with disabilities, BL facilitated livelihood opportunity program. Association of people with Disabilities/DPOs/, Federation of Ethiopian National Association of Persons with disabilities the southern regional branch coordination office and Hawassa city administration Labor and Social Affair department and others participated in the selection and consultation process. In the reporting period 80 youth with disabilities were identified to be eligible and enrolled in the vocational training program and trained on the area of their interest and capacity.

Income Generation Materials and Kits Towards ensuring the trained Youths with Disabilities engage in productive work, various materials (18 leather machines, 6 garment machines and full sets of men and women hair dressing and beauty salon equipment’s and related furniture)for production of goods & service were purchased and provided to 9 organized associations. This was accompanied with facilitating market linkages with active and close collaboration of pertinent government partner offices.

16 2017 Annual Report Berhan Lehetsanat Entrepreneurship Development Training A 3 day’s training was organized in collaboration with trade and industry office where a total of47 participants drawn from different associations of persons with disabilities participated. The training was more of inclusive through assigning sign language interpreter.

Consultation & Meetings/Sensitization In the reporting period a very productive meeting was organized with the major objective of creating job opportunities for youth with disabilities. Their role is clearly stated and incorporated in the MoU to be signed among the potential actors of the livelihood program. A total of 56 participants drawn from different Associations of persons with disabilities and DPOs attended the sensitization program.

Organizational capacity Building During the reporting period valuable documents, like Organization system, Salary Structure, Human Resource Development Policy Manual, Procurement Policy Manual and Property Management Policy Manual were reviewed and updated for implementation. The current strategic plan (2015-2019) was also reviewed and revised towards the objective of enhancing accountability and quality assurance in all program and administrative issues.

BL has secured training opportunities from the USAID Local Capacity Development office for different staffs at different levels. Experience sharing events were also organized at the head and project office levels. During the reporting period the organization has capacitated head office and project offices, where various materials and equipments were provided that contributed towards program/project effectiveness.

Lessons Learnt • Working in collaboration with all stakeholders proved to have added value in realizing achievements. • Engagement of community members and community based structures at all levels facilitates the implementation of the programs and ensures creation of sense of ownership. Accordingly, some programs have been included as part of the federal systems by respective government bodies. • Periodic consultation and discussion with GOs, NGOs and community partners promotes trust and accountability. • Community based programs improve self - images , family economy, the role of youth and women at all levels as well as decrease the existing stigma and discrimination.

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Challenges

• Shortage of specific and disability related funds globally. • Turnover and transfer of local government officials who had closely been working with BL. • Unrest in some parts of the country affecting timely implementation of planned activities. • Price escalation of goods and services and inflation due to currency devaluation. • The delay on providing working space (for production and sales) of organized target beneficiaries from the responsible government offices. • Shortage of quality raw materials, especially leather, in the county limiting the production of goods by trained youth with disabilities. • Scarcity of skilled human resource in major operational areas like physiotherapy technicians.

Our Partners

 Disability and Development Partners(DDP)/Big lottery, DFID  Interpidia  Liliana Fonds/Cheshire Services  Pact/USAID  Light for the world  BL local fund raising

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2017 FINANCIAL REPORT REVENUE

The total revenue generated during the year was Ethiopian Birr 11,694, 875 from the following sources.

 Disability and Development Partners(DDP) - 5,122,461  Interpidia - 2,414,631  Cheshire Services Ethiopia - 309,675  Pact/USAID - 2,146,889  Light for the world - 915,870  BL local fund raising - 785,349

EXPENSES Total Expense of the year was Ethiopian Birr 12,364, 415 with Program Implementation Expense amounting to Ethiopian Birr 8,874,492 and Administration Expense of Ethiopian Birr 3,489,923.

Program Implementation

Administration

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2017 AUDITED INCOME & EXPENDITURE STATEMENT

20 2017 Annual Report Thanks to all our Partners !!!!

The General Assembly Session Berhan Lehetsanat Telephone: Office + 251-115-544814/45 Mobile + 251-911-223574 Fax: 251-115-544723 Website: www.berhanlehetsanat.org Email: [email protected] P.O.Box: 25929 code 1000 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia