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Ryan's Rays

Ethiopia

Inclusive education, disability training and awareness.

A country steeped in history, Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent nation and the birthplace of Ryan’s Rays first projects. Although never having faced the challenges of colonization, droughts and civil unrest in Ethiopia have hurt development and made life in Ethiopia difficult. Ranked in the top 20 of the poorest countries in the world, over 60% of Ethiopians live on less than $3.20 a day.

With a current population of around 100 million, it is estimated that 17.5% of the Ethiopian population lives with a disability. Of this number, there are an estimated 8 million children living with disabilities in Ethiopia.

Circumstances are often bleak for children with disabilities in Ethiopia. Though disability advocates are working hard to change perceptions, there is still a social stigma regarding disability, and children living with disabilities and their parents are often marginalized. The result is that many children with disabilities are still hidden by their families. And though Ethiopian constitution and education policies provide for equal rights for the disabled, including the right to education, only around 2% of children with disabilities currently have access to education. For those who do have access to education, they are often faced with teachers who are untrained in Special Needs Education and lack relevant resources and school materials.

Although there is much work to be done to ensure inclusion of disabled children in Ethiopian society, the country has made some positive moves forward in recent years. Disability advocates continue to work hard to change attitudes around disabilities throughout the country and there is a growing focus on the importance of inclusive education.

Ryan’s Rays is passionate about supporting projects that improve access to quality education for children living with disabilities in Ethiopia through a strategic partnership with Karis Disability Services Global, an organization who has been working in Ethiopia for over 25 years.

Since our partnership began in 2017, Ryan’s Rays has provided support for:

A man and a teenage boy sitting with a young boy in a home, below a framed painting of a smiling childA teenage boy crouching down to greet a small girl in a classroomA teacher standing among students in red and blue school uniforms at their classroom desksSix young children standing together in front of a mud-walled buildingShelves filled with books beside a reading table in a new school libraryA group of young students in red school jumpers standing together outdoorsChildren walking towards the entrance of a two-storey school building with a banner across the frontA woman with her arm around a smiling boy in a blue T-shirt outside a schoolA girl in a pink headscarf standing behind a boy seated in a wheelchair in a classroomThree girls in blue school uniforms waving beside a younger child seated in a wheelchairA boy standing outside a green-painted school building with illustrated murals on the wallPeople gathered under trees in a paved school garden, with Ethiopian and Canadian flags flyingA tree and paved paths in a landscaped courtyard between school buildingsTwo boys in white T-shirts, one seated in a wheelchair, smiling on a verandaA girl in a white T-shirt seated beside a woman holding a small childA man seated on a bench with three children wearing white project T-shirts