Day 6 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. May 17, 2012

Another busy day, which would have been uneventful if it was not for a very tragic incident.  Seble (IFA COO) and I, leaving our office for another meeting in the afternoon saw a dog on the edge of a road. Seble was driving and as we passed the dog I happened to glance his way, and saw a a very emaciated, dirty dog who actually looked dead on the side of the road. When I mentioned it to Seble, she told me this was the dog she told me about a few days earlier and was trying to get her vet to catch. She saw half of his front leg broken with the skin dangling and the bones sticking out, she tried to catch him but could not. Everytime she saw him he was in and out of traffic . The vet told her he could not catch him either. When I saw him today the dog was in no condition to move so I immediately called the vet to come and to assess if he was not dead but close to it to euthanize him, and if he was alive and had a chance to take him to his clinic and treat him. Luckily the vet is a good and caring guy and he agreed to do exactly what I asked. He soon picked up the dog and took him to his clinic. He gave him a tranquilizer to relax him. We told him we would meet him at his office after finishing our meeting which we did. When we got there we saw a severly emaciated, dehydrated dirty dog who was out of it. Half of is right front leg was gone with only bones sticking out. The room he was in smelled horrible. The tissue where his foot used to be was an amalgam of dead tissue,skin, and flesh. The poor thing had been walking on this semi amputated leg and he had reached his end and was dying slowly in agony on the side of a road alone. After discussing with the vet we decided to fight to save him. The vet felt with amputation of the damaged leg and post surgerical care he would do fine. We told him to amputate the leg and we would try to find him a temporary home until we figure out what to do.
Our trials and tribulations continue in Africa.

Will post pictures as soon as possible.

Day 5 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. May 16, 2012

Busy and a very tiring day. Many meetings all day. Our US friends returned to the states. Nothing else going on.

Day 5 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. May 16, 2012

Busy and a very tiring day. Many meetings all day. Our US friends returned to the states. Nothing else going on.

Day 4 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. May 15, 2012

Slower day but still pretty busy.

Met with IFA’s accountant in the morning, followed by a local hydro-geologist who is interested in helping us provide clean water in the region where we are trying to create our Green Community Village in northern Shoa province. He will do the preliminary assessment to give us an idea what is needed to provide clean water to people in the area and how much it will cost.
In the afternoon Dawn from A Well Fed World and I participated in a homeless feeding program at the St George Church in Addis, we participated in the feeding of about 100 people. We have plans to hook up with young Ethiopians who want to do this regularly and IFA and AWFW are planning to support them to do feedings of homeless people around the city. It is truly heart braking to see little children hungry and we want to do something to change this on a broader systemic level but also on a micro more immediate level.
The rest of the day was uneventful.

Day 3 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. May 14, 2012

Busy day in Addis.

Seble (IFA COO) and I went to the  ministry of health in the morning to make an appointment to see the minister of health, after wards we met with the CEO of a local solar energy company to see if we could collaborate and even form a partnership to build a green community village in Northern Ethiopia where we currently conduct our medical missions. Mid-day we met with the the Addis Ababa Health Bureau head Mr’s Fantu and the head of the neo-natology services at Yekatit hospital Dr Mulualem Gessesse at her office about how to involve US based residency programs in Ethiopia and particularly at Yekatit Hospital. We soon afterwards we went to meet the  section chief of the United Nations Environmental Programme in Addis Ababa, Serge Bounda and the representative of UNECA, Nestanet Deneke as well as the representatives of the UNDP and FAO, at the UN compound in Addis Ababa.We discussed about ways of working with the various UN agencies in bringing IFA’s green community village concept to fruition in rural Africa starting with our current project in Northern Shoa province,with us was Dawn Moncrief of A Well Fed World who asked some questions about the current policies of the various agencies on food security issues in Africa in general.

Early evening I did a presentation to  one of the Addis Ababa rotary clubs at the Wabe Shebelle hotel. My presentation was about the challenges,the opportunities and the possible solutions to improving health care in rural Ethiopia. I gave  a brief presentation about our Green Community Village concept to the rotarians as well as show  two video’s of our recent medical mission to Northern Shoa.My presentation was very well recieved.

 

 

Day 3 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The second ever Ethiopian Vegan Conference was held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on May 12, 2012

The conference was an amazing success, close to a hundred people attended. We had 9 speakers, 5 of them from Ethiopia,4 from overseas. Close to 30% of the people who attended were already vegetarians or vegans. Almost 80% of those who were omnivorous vowed to move towards a plant based diet. We had Ethiopian TV coverage and also EBS which is a Maryland based TV company that broadcasts on dish network in the US, also broadcasts in Europe and the Middle East. I was interviewed by both networks and our COO miss Seble Nebiyeloul was interviewed by EBS . The conference was held at a historic hotel, the oldest in Addis Ababa. The hotel has a model garden where they grow organic vegetables using simple agricultural and ecological techniques like composting and perm-culture. On our lunch break, all of the conference participants visited the garden and we were given a short lecture on composting and perma -culture methods of growing food by a young Ethiopian woman trained in the science.  The owner of the hotel is a strong advocate of a plant based diet and the restaurant at the hotel serves daily vegan and vegetarian food. We had delicious vegan food served outside on a beautiful sunny Ethiopian day.

The morning session consisted of various speakers from diverse backgrounds who spoke about the health aspects of being vegan/vegetarian as well as the environmental implications of an animal based diet. We had speakers who discussed the challenges of being vegan/vegetarian in Ethiopia . We also had testimonials by Ethiopian  vegans and vegetarians who recounted how they became vegan/ vegetarian. One of these converts was a young gentleman from Poland who is in his second year of a tour around the world on a bicycle. He started out in Poland and is now heading to South Africa and stopped in Addis when he heard of our conference.
 The afternoon session was designed to engage the participants so they could feel that they had something to contribute. We broke up the participants into four groups and we designed three questions. We asked the participants to discuss and  answer the three questions and to designate one representative from each group to come up to the podium after 20 minutes and give a summary of all the answers to the questions. It was a brilliant idea and the results were very encouraging. All the participants were very engaged, live discussions and debates were held and at the end most of the participants not only felt they had something valuable to contribute to the conference, but they signed up to be members,pledged to spread the word, to convince family friends and their co-workers to turn vegetarian. Some actually pledged to provide help materially and by helping on technical matters. We even had individuals from the different ministries there, representing their respective offices and told to report back to their bosses, who actually were not vegans or vegetarians nor had any interest being one,who got inspired and got  involved in the lively discussions in the break out sessions. It was awesome to see the interest, people engaged and motivated, who up till that day were closet vegetarians coming out with confidence and asserting themselves or who never considered being herbivores seriously entertaining the idea.
This conference not only  allowed us to create more awareness, we were also able to recruit a lot of people to the cause and through the association we have created build  a very strong vegan organization in Ethiopia.  

 The other most encouraging thing that happened was a conference of this magnitude was organized in literally two weeks and it was made possible byIFA’s co-founder and COO miss Seble who was able to find  many young, smart and very  committed vegans and vegetarians from all walks of life who helped  organize the conference. The conference would not have been as successful without the strong support of Dawn Moncrief of a Well Fed World who along with IFA sponsored the conference.

 

Will post pictures as soon as I get back to the USA

Day 2 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ( May11,2012)

Visited a  small  organic vegetable garden in Addis. Learned about composting which is what is used to grow the vegetables , We then went to visit a non-governmental non for profit organization called Hope. The organization feeds vegan/vegetarian food to approximately 1000  homeless people a day, they also have a school (up to 10th grade and it caters to children whose parents are very poor). We were given a full tour of the facility.

We then visited a school supported by the government next to the city’s dump. The smell was horrendous but the work the dedicated staff does is very inspiring. Just like  Hope, the schools main mission is to provide quality education for children whose families are too poor to send their children to school. The school provides food for about 30 children whose parents are beggars or have died of AIDS. The children are basically homeless.It was heart breaking to see these children huddled together eating,

Hopefully, IFA with the support of a Well Fed World and others will find ways to help alleviate the suffering of poor people in Ethiopia/Africa.

Will post photos when I get back to the US.

Vegan Conference in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

IFA in association with A Well Fed World will be sponsoring a vegan conference on May 12, 2012 followed by a feeding program a few days after. We will hook up with existing organizations in Ethiopia that feed vegan food to homeless people. I will try to update people on our activities while in Ethiopia.

Coming back hom…

Coming back home  from a meeting early yesterday morning
(May 3,2012). I saw something moving while driving past a grassy area close to major tollway in north Houston. At first I thought it was a rabbit but when I got closer to the area I realized it was a small dog. Being the ”dog person that I am” I immediately made a u turn and headed back to the area. Unfortunately there was no parking and I had to stop on the side of the road, put my emergency lights on and go look for the little dog who was still in the same area I had seen him first. The dog was terrified, shaking. Had no visible signs of injury but was wet and a bit skinny. It took me about 10 minutes crawling on my knees trying to gain his trust. Eventually he got closer. I reached out for him, he let me massage his head and he in turn gave me a lick. However I was still having difficulties getting him to trust me enough to go with me. I decided to get a leash and food to be able to get him to safety so I got back in my car and headed to the closest clinic in the area. The clinic I found close by gave me what I needed and so I went back to the same place the dog was, and sure enough he was waiting for me. After another ten minutes or so I was able to slip the leash around his neck and get him in the car. The car ride was interesting. Once in the car he went from a scared little dog to a little guy that was taking a joy ride. He seemed much more relaxed and curious. I got him to my vet,had him checked, cleaned and fed. He is a 1.5 year old mutt,healthy, who has now found a new home. I named him Tommy after the recently deceased Ethiopian Cave Dog. Tommy welcome to the IFA family.

Meeting David Hinds

I met the lead singer of the legendary Reggae band Steel Pulse in Austin,Texas yesterday. Attended their gig in downtown Austin. It was great. Prior to the show had dinner with David and Christian Sarkar, a good friend of both myself and David. During dinner David told me he had an interview on CNN the day before and he told the reporter that Steel pulse will support the work of IFA in Africa, which was very exciting to hear. I will try to access the interview and post it as soon as I get hold of it.