IMPACTS
The majority of women heads have got alternative jobs and means of income generation (60% according to our appraisal in 2013). Above all, it has been identified that 100% of them have brought about changes in attitudes. All those addressed on the study confessed that the project has given them the chance to think out of the box and they have recognized that there are alternative ways of managing daily home chores (instead of always being at home) and creating alternative means of income generation. SDE has started gathering profiles of good practices in each project and publish some of them annually since this year. The whole story of those post beneficiaries selected and published in 2016 as a model of good practitioners are typical examples of the project impacts on them.
All of those street children have been finalists to be trained on wood and metalwork in the second year of their enrolment to the project are used to be 100% guaranteed employment in the last two months where they are sent for cooperative training. Our studies confirm that above 97% of them have created sustainable means of income generation in addition to some of them have experienced wonderful performances. Those special ones include owners of condominium, wood and metal workshops, public transport services- like taxies and university graduates and high school students with remarkable school performances.
Similarly, SDE has enabled to create job opportunities or helped them to reunify with their families for at least 95% of homeless people before they leave the project. The job opportunity is through networking with potential employers, encouraging self-employment and self-searching. Therefore the lion share of them is engaging directly on the skills that they have trained in SDE or working on other better-paying labor jobs owing to a high potential of labor capacity combined with changes in attitude. Looking at profiles of exemplary good practitioners will help readers of the information in this website to understand more on the impacts of the project.
Though highly challenging, our HIV/AIDS orphan children are living healthy and proactive life as normal as those who have families. SDE is investing a lot to help them have a quality education; hence elder one's today are attending their studies in universities and higher level technical schools in addition to graduating to individual life. To this end, one has already graduated to individual life; two are studying in the universities and at the same time they are on the way moving to individual life and four are studying in technical and vocational colleges.
Children and youths who join our Siddartha Youth Project from low or no income families can be easily identified in their regular schools by being an active participant in classes, social interventions, different clubs and arts’ contests & shows. The evaluation report of the training at the end of every training year shows that the trainees confirm that the life skill training is the cornerstone of their entire life. They also unanimously substantiate that such skill training is very obliging in their behavior and even to effectively attend the art skills training and regular schooling. We also identified that several of the graduates in the youth project have formed different clubs and music bands, some individuals produced clips, some of them have become famous singers and film actors. Handfuls of them are also found employed in every theatre houses here in Addis Ababa and are known for their skillfulness. Hence many of them are generating reasonable income to support their low-income families and their own schooling.
Generating income through sex work in the context of our target areas is through jeopardizing their life, but comparatively attractive payment than small businesses. Therefore it has been challenging to SDE creating alternative job opportunities with fewer payments and transforms their occupations to such jobs. However, through enduring efforts, we had been able to alternate job opportunities for many of them. Our 2013 evaluation showed that graduates of survival sex workers have got alternative jobs as the same as women headed family beneficiaries (60%).
As the old and sick elders acknowledge every time to anybody and as someone can easily judge, the lives of 178 helpless old and sick people would not be sustained to date without SDE’s care and support.
It is easier to imagine what would happen on the personal hygiene and environmental sanitation of urban dwellers without access, at least, for a modest type of toilets. SDE intervened in protecting from the awful consequences of inaccessibility to toilets for 4050 community members by constructing and renovating 64 and 14 dry latrines, respectively.