Education for Sustainable Development

Early Childhood Development 

Under  this  program,  ESD  intends to  build a  strong  foundation  for  lifelong physical, emotional, social &  mental  health  that  enhances readiness of children to succeed at   school   and later  in life.   In   effect   of  this,   ESD  aims at    enhancing      Early   Child  Development   &   Education   for   disadvantaged    children   (0-6),  support   social   protection  and  safeguarding    mechanism   for        the    prevention    and   responses   to  violence   against   children,   introduce   improved  WASH  schemes   at  Community  Based  Early  Child  Development  & Education (ECDE)  centers, at  12  Government  ECDE  centers  &  at   households. Furthermore, it intends  to  strengthen the existing ESD’s Pedagogical Resource Center (PRC),  

Women and Girl’s Empowerment

Under this program,   disadvantaged   adolescent girls and adult  women    will be empowered through promoting and providing adolescent girls friendly Sexual Reproductive Health (SRH) services. In line with this, the program aims at preventing girls from child marriage and other forms of     violence and  Harmful  Traditional  Practices (HTPs).  In general, ESD intends to enhance   leadership   capacity   of adolescent  girls and women, create meaningful livelihood mechanism for adolescent girls and women through SHG/VSLA approach.

Quality Education

The Education program targets schools to become child friendly, culture and gender responsive, inclusive    and    where   technology   integrated environment is prevailing through creation and enhancing child friendly school environment,   promoting  girls’  education  and increase  school completion    rate     of girls,    enhancing   intercultural competency of target  communities, and through promoting and strengthen ICT support in underserved or disadvantaged schools.

Nurturing   students/   children  talent   and  innovation   promotion  in the school  system  is the primary focus of the organization   by integrating knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values, which young people are required to  have   in the 21st century.    Globalization,   new   technology,  and knowledge growth in today’s societies call for creative and purposeful citizens who can combine excellence  with  ethics.  Gifted  students  and   professionals   in  science  create  new  ideas  and products that can be used in the benefit of our society.

Youth Skill Development and job Creation

This   program   aims   at   enhancing    vocational,  entrepreneurship,   business,  and  life skills for disadvantaged   youths   and   link    them with   lucrative   job  opportunities    through   enhancing entrepreneurship    &   life   and   vocational  skills   of   youths   and   facilitation   of   employment opportunities for the youths. In effect of this, periodic market assessment on profitable business and  training  areas   are  conducted  and  periodic  consultative  workshops with  employers  and  private sectors are conducted.  Providing  startup capital, or linking the trained youth with  loan  institutions, mentoring and coaching them at their works and organizing alumni days are some of the strategies to be used to promote the youth skills development and their employment.

Environment Protection and Renewable energy

This  program   intends   to  reduce   climate   change   adoptability,   environmental   protection  and renewable energy to impact positively the livelihoods of rural community members through  creating climate change resilient community  members.  Convincing and  supporting  rural  households to  use alternative  energy  for  cooking  and  light  and  through  protecting  land  from  soil  degradation  by implementing  soil and water conservation works. Furthermore, ESD intends to empower households (HHs) to  be  climate  change  resilient  community  through  trainings and provision of technical and financial support to use it for water and soil conservation works

Emergency Response and recovery

This     humanitarian     response     is an   emerging    program    of  ESD   that     intends to   reduce vulnerability and  risks     of victims of   emergency   through   promoting   psychosocial  support for victims of emergency, supporting     repatriation program  of  the  government,  promoting  tolerance, reconciliation and   peace   building in conflict prone districts and in  IDP centers.  ESD also strive to create education opportunity for emergency affected children and girls. 

To meet  the  objectives  clarified above, ESD   conduct  various  trainings   on vocational  skills,  life skills and  intercultural  and social cohesion.  Provide agricultural  and  other  inputs and tools for HH heads to restart and sustain  their livelihoods.  Village  savings  that  operates based on SHG approach  for  HH  heads will  also  be  established,  while facilitating provision of food and non-food items  for  returnees  are also  practiced  as a means to meet ESD’s Humanitarian Response Program.

ESD’s interventions are related to the following cross-cutting issues:

• Gender;
• Special needs and inclusive education;
• HIV/ AIDS;
• Education in emergencies;

Gender Mainstreaming

Given  that  Ethiopia  has  been  a   patriarchal  society  gender relations  are  still  constructed  in  an imbalanced  way. Therefore  girls  and  women  are  mostly  affected  through  various  socio-cultural conditions ESD  believes  that  programmatic  interventions  under  such  conditions where  there  are gender disparities and biases, hinder its effectiveness in delivering intended changes and development in  the  community  and  the  society at large. The argument leads to the conclusion that gender equity becomes a central component of the organization’s thematic areas of interventions.              

Special needs and inclusive education;

that all stages of intervention processes are inclusive of and accessible to persons with special needs. It requires that all persons be afforded equal access to any thematic areas of ESD Work and employment, and social protection, among others.

HIV/AIDS protection intervention

Regarding sexual reproductive health (SRH), we are creating awareness of HIV/AIDS protection.