Due to unforeseen circumstances, we are very sorry that we have to cancel the March 29th Ethiopian Dinner event. We are merely postponing the event to a future date, hopefully in the Fall of 2025, when we can be sure to deliver the fun, vibrant and yummy event that we want it to be.

All tickets purchased to date will be refunded. For paper ticket holders, we will be contacting you in the next 1-3 days by the phone number you provided to arrange for your refund. For Eventbrite ticket holders, we will trigger refunds by tonight and followup in next 2-3 days.

We are sorry for any inconvenience. We thank everyone for their interest and support, and look forward to seeing you at our future event(s).

Questions? Please contact us at saethiopiandinner@outlook.com

Partners in Ethiopia (PiE) is a team of Canadian volunteers working to improve education, community health and maternal health services in Ethiopia with our registered Ethiopian non-profit partner Vision for Bright Future (VBF). We are a secular, non-profit, volunteer-run, charitable organization working to enact effective, compassionate development and aid.

Our mostly Enderby, BC-based team includes key people from Partners in the Horn of Africa (PiHA) who are inspired to continue the John Baigent model for development aid now that PiHA has wound down after John's passing. Similar to PiHA, VBF and our Ethiopian communities play key roles in selecting and implementing their projects and contribute 10-20% of the cost of infrastructure projects.

We proudly operate as a project of Rose Charities Canada whom we entrust to accept donations on our behalf, issue tax receipts and support us administratively very efficiently. Thus 95+% of your donation goes to the direct project costs in Ethiopia.

The new Maternal Care Centre in Agarfa, Ethiopia is ready - one final step to opening

Since early 2020 we have been funding smaller scale projects to support education and health in the Agarfa area of the Oromia region. With that success, we felt we were ready to tackle something more ambitious.

We are happy to share that with our funding and direction, our partners in Ethiopia have now finished building a well-constructed, sanitary and well-equipped Maternal Care Centre (MCC) adjacent to the existing Agarfa Health Centre. The quality of the construction is getting noticed by the community and regional officials who are all excited to have the MCC functioning.

Before it can open, we are working to fund updated medical equipment and beds, and startup medical supplies to allow the MCC to function efficiently. To date, we have raised $8,000 of our $20,000 goal and are on a final fundraising drive to reach our goal and allow the MCC to function as planned.

To build the MCC, we raised $149,000 CAD of the total project cost of $165,000. We are happy to share that the people of the Agarfa community via our partner Vision For Bright Future (VBF) contributed $16,000 to the project in a combination of labour, supplies and donations.

A new MCC has been needed for quite some time and was identified as the top priority by the community. The existing maternal health facility in Agarfa is a two-room cinder block, concrete floor building with no running water, privacy, or space for post-natal care. Ethiopia has an infant death rate 8 times higher and a maternal death rate 40 times higher than Canada's rates (worldbank.org). Partners in Ethiopia, with your help, has worked with our partners to help reduce this risk in Agarfa.

The Partners In Ethiopia team thanks you for your interest in this important cause. Choosing which charities to support is always a hard choice. It can be hard to find non-profits that use your money carefully and efficiently to deliver effective assistance to either our local community or to developing communities.

The new Agarfa Maternal Care Centre (MCC) is almost done - it is a vast improvement on existing facilities - it has an 8 bed labour room with dividers, a delivery room with 2 beds, 4 postnatal care rooms with 2 beds per room, an office, medical supply storage and a reception area.

A testament to the need for the MCC and the resilience of the people of Agarfa

Okanagan-based Emergency Room Nurse (and PiE supporter) Susan Broadfoot travelled to Ethiopia in 2017 and shares her story of what she witnessed in Agarfa in a presentation she and Woinshet recently made to the Kelowna Mission Rotary Club:

"I was able to witness first hand the the Agarfa Health Center, including the maternity ward. My first impression was shock and dismay. As a first world nurse in a tertiary center, we have unlimited resources available at our fingertips.

To see this very rural setting, where there were women in active labor in the midst of such scarcity, such obvious poverty it was very hard for me to walk away from without that dagger in my heart to try to want to be a part of making a change for this community. The setting included old flattened mattresses with large tears in them, old broken beds, needles being reused, outdated IV fluids, very limited, bare shelves, outdated neonatal, perinatal, maternal supplies, resuscitation carts not stocked. The question is why can't they have access to what we have access to. I truly believe if we can help build this centre, it will thrive.

I think what's important to understand is the results are measurable. The results are immediate and will have an immediate life changing/community changing long lasting effect within all ages. The maternity clinic will immediately lift up people's lives and better the community and the can feel they have a partner out in the world that cares.

I also feel that the organization that Woinshet has established is a unique organization where it doesn't just hand out, but I feel that it actually lifts up the community because they are the project.

Lastly I would like to leave you with this image in your minds of my first hand impression of the Ethiopian people.

After spending time there, to see the care that they provide, their commitment and devotion to their community is something worth investing in. They are able to do so much with so little. The professionalism and the spirit of the Ethiopians within health care was pure grace and dignity.”

Partners in Ethiopia – A Renewal of the Partners in the Horn of Africa model

We are a development initiative in Ethiopia modeled after Partners in the Horn of Africa (PiHA), a charity co-founded by John Baigent and Mekonen Bayssie, that was ultimately wound down in 2018 after John’s passing in 2016. Woinshet Bayssie, John’s widow and long term PiHA volunteer, has been inspired to resurrect the spirit of the PiHA model in a new organization, Partners in Ethiopia (PiE), and is now joined by her brother Mekonen Bayssie and a group of volunteers including some key PiHA advocates. Founded in 2020, PiE, is currently focused on improving the lives of the 156,000+ people of the Agarfa woreda (aka district) in a politically stable and food resilient area of southeast Ethiopia.

PiE, a non-sectarian charitable organization, in conjunction with our Ethiopian nonprofit NGO partner Vision for Bright Future (VBF), has two main development focuses:
• Education: Supporting Agarfa area K-12 schools and students to improve access to a quality education including providing textbooks for schools, and for those in need, subsidizing school uniforms, stationery materials for students, and underwear and re-usable sanitary napkins for adolescent girls.
• Health: We are almost finished constructing a new Maternal Care Centre (MCC) to replace two grossly inadequate delivery rooms with no running water. The MCC will be about 1850 square feet of buildings with an eight bed labour room with dividers, a delivery room with two beds, four postnatal care rooms with two beds per room, an office that includes medical supply storage, and a reception area.

Some of the women who will hopefully benefit from the soon to be opened Maternal Care Centre.

PiE operates under the umbrella of Rose Charities Canada (RCC), a BC-based volunteer NGO and registered charity that provides the legal and financial framework for PIE for a fee of only 4% of donations. PiE is a 100% volunteer organization based in Enderby, BC, and has no overhead expenses. Thus all funds raised, less a 4% fee to RCC and a small percent for expenses associated with funds transfers to Ethiopia, go directly to the projects in Ethiopia. All donations qualify for CRA tax credits.

Additional Key Highlights regarding PiE’s work in Ethiopia:
· PiE’s predecessor, Partners in the Horn of Africa (PiHA), raised over $12 million over a period of about 17 years in support of a variety of community selected and engaged projects in Ethiopia, including footbridges, schools, libraries, clean water and a variety of social support projects, improving the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians. John Baigent was awarded the Meritorious Service Medal by the Governor General of Canada in 2016 for realizing a new innovative model of effective aid in Ethiopia and by inspiring a deep group of corporate and individual donors, volunteers, employees and Ethiopian Partners.
· Modelling ourselves after PiHA, PiE works closely with its partner organization in Ethiopia, Vision for Bright Future (VBF), a small non-profit NGO based in the Bale Zone of the Oromia regional State of Ethiopia, which is also the Zone in which Agarfa is located. VBF is represented in Agarfa by Mulualem Mekonnen, who works tirelessly sourcing school books, school uniforms, feminine hygiene supplies, and continues to be instrumental in co-ordinating the construction management on the Maternal Care Centre. Mulualem is also always reviewing opportunities to reduce costs, including seeking local government funding, and community contributions (labour, materials, expertise).

For further information, contact Woinshet Bayssie and the team at partnersinethiopia@gmail.com

Photos of the crowded existing delivery & recovery rooms in the Agarfa Health Centre during Woinshet Bayssie's visit in April 2022.