Mission Statement:  To help children attain their potential and aspirations in life through education which is the key to success.
We are a volunteer organization that is run by a Board of Directors from the education and social services sector.  There are no salaries or honourariums paid to any member of the board, or any type of compensation. We are a not for profit corporation  with charitable status in Canada.  At this point, over 90% of every dollar  raised  goes back to our programs in Ethiopia.

We work directly with local Ethiopian education and community leaders to create supports that meet the needs of the local people.  Our board meets throughout the year in Waterloo, Ontario with an annual visit to  Kelafo to ensure that implementation is going smoothly.  

A Classroom of a Different Nature

In Ontario, we have classes with 21 or fewer students in our  elementary schools.  Research has proven that the more individual attention a teacher can give a student, the better their opportunity to learn.

 In the villages of Kelafo, there can be more than 70 students in one class! In some cases, half the students attend school in the morning and the other half attend in the afternoon because the schools simply aren't big enough to hold all of the students at one time.  While most of the classrooms are now  furnished  with  tables and chairs, rarely do students have access to school supplies, books or other important resources to help them learn.  Also, the government hired teachers who run the local schools are often not qualified and cannot properly teach the students the curriculum. And those students wanting to continue their education beyond the elementary level must leave home to attend high school in another community.

​We are working to improve these conditions.  
Our focus is to ensure Kelafo has a sustainable, locally managed, education program.
OUR PROJECTS
Waterloo Connection
Education 4 Change was founded by Abdi Maawiye, a social worker,  and his colleagues with the Waterloo Region District School Board. Abdi recruited  fellow  educational workers (including teachers, social workers  and principals) from the WRDSB to help him develop Education 4 Change in 2009.  This has given our charity a special blend of personal experience, local  passion and a belief in the power of education to bring  about change. 

 Over that past 10 years, several Education 4 Change board members have traveled to Ethiopia to meet with the Minister of Education, local village elders, community members and local level Directors. The first partnership schools were established in 2013 with the hiring of staff and purchasing of equipment and classroom supplies. The dream of bringing education to the remote villages of the Kelafo district of Ethiopia is becoming a reality.

Always Expanding

The response from the communities within the Kelafo district of
Ethiopia has been tremendous.  Each community that we have been developing partnerships with has shown such interest in bringing education to their village.  They understand how even basic literacy  leads to  more opportunities for their children and themselves. 
And the word is spreading.  Currently there are more villages that are in need of help than we can  properly support. 

Education 4 Change works with local elders and community members to develop local solutions for individual villages. And our qualified teachers work with  the villages to develop their own parent councils. This increases the  accountability of the government run schools as well as our mobile school.  We  assist these parent councils in developing accountability measures and we show them the value of having both girls and boys attend school.
We believe that we can make a difference in the lives of children by focusing on their educational needs.

Using Local Resources

Ethiopian resources and cultural norms are different than Canada's.  Therefore it is important to use local resources and respect cultural norms.  This makes education more accessible, acceptable and sustainable for future generations.