The End of Child Abandonment in Gunchire, Ethiopia

Dr. Aschalew Abebe is famous for insisting that your dream should be large enough to scare you. This phrase, and his commitment to it, stirs something uncomfortably inspiring in us.

During Gunchire’s orphaned children crisis, it must have felt worrisome to dream of a day when every child had a family. Back then, it likely felt frightening to imagine what legalizing and normalizing local adoption practices would require. In the midst of this struggle, it surely felt terrifying to envision a reality where all families in the region were flourishing, and child abandonment was no longer a concern.

But today, the Gunchire region no longer suffers from an orphaned child crisis. In fact, this region that used to have one of the highest rates of abandoned children now has none.

This is all because of that improbable dream Aschalew believed so deeply in. Because of the holistic strategy to not just address the orphan crisis but also to set families up to flourish on their own and never have to make the impossible choice of whether they could afford to keep their children.

To learn more about how you can make this dream a reality in the communities we partner with, go to www.helponenow.org/rise