Muleta Argaw

Muleta is one of my amazing colleagues I spoke to this week regarding a passion project he is working on locally in his town, Jimma, in the beautiful country of Ethiopia.

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Muleta and a group of friends started supplying school books at no cost to the children in their local area.  They first launched an organized effort for this in 2019 and were able to provide books to a small group of children in need.  That has since grown and they now have up to 35 children they assist.  This year, they were able to provide 12 books for each child.  Older children received 12 books and the younger ones (under age 10) received 6 books. The local government works to provide information on children who need this type of assistance to Muleta’s team.

In addition to providing lesson books to school children, Muleta and his friends provided free weekend classes to support the children and to help them excel in learning the material.  Many children in Ethiopia are also tasked with earning income for their families, which results in them having to work after school, and taking some time away from focusing on their studies.  The weekend opportunities to learn were to help these children stay on track for school and provide support.

There are two different paths that children in Ethiopia can take for education. There are government schools, which are public schools and have no cost associated with them, and there are private schools, which have tuition that parents pay.  Children attending the public school system come from different economic backgrounds and some come from challenging situations where it makes it difficult to be able to afford to purchase the lesson books needed for school.  It is this realization that led Muleta to want to do something to help.  When I prodded a bit deeper about this, Muleta mentioned that it was his mother’s example he was following, as she had done work like this in the past and had the belief that if you can help to make something better for someone then it is something you should do.

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The books that Muleta and his team collect are donated or are found at discounted pricing in local markets.  It is his goal this coming year to be able to also offer notebooks, which will allow children to take notes during class.