Streets of Bahirdar

Yilalu is a 15 year old girl living on the streets in Bahir Dar. When she was 5 years old she was kidnapped from her home and forced to work in the home of her kidnapper. She was greatly abused by her abductor and lost her left eye. 7 years later she escaped and started searching for her home. Till now she has not been able to find her family and is living on the streets of Bahir Dar.
Habtel is a 7 month old living on the street. Her 17 year old mother lost both her parents and had been living on the streets. A man who she didn't know raped her and now she has a baby who will grow up knowing nothing but street life.
According to government estimates there are 5 to 6 thousand kids living on the streets in Bahir Dar. The primary cause is that both parents died. They are deprived of shelter, food, education, medical help and most importantly family. Most will end up in lives of crime to survive. Many say they see only blackness and death for the future.
We have started to gather some information and try and understand what is happening in Bahir Dar. We are humbled and amazed at how God is putting together the pieces for us. The vision we had was to mobilize the University students to tackle some of the issues and act as big brothers and sisters to the destitute children. We didn't know how we were going to convince students who have a very heavy study load to give of their time for these castaways. But, God has already been guiding other people's hearts just as He has ours, and God has already put us in touch with a core group of university students who have the identical vision, they simply lack the resources to carry it out. We plan to meet weekly with this core and (with God's guidance), start to put together an action plan to tackle these overwhelming needs and hope to expand it to include prostitutes and other destitute women and girls who end up on the streets.
Sue has started the home schooling program with the girls. They are enjoying it and according to their teacher, both are doing well.