Ethiopia Program Expanding to Gedeo Zone

We are excited to announce that Grounds for Health will soon be expanding our work in Ethiopia to include the Gedeo Zone. We’ve just signed a Project Agreement with the Ethiopian Bureau of Finance and Economic Development (BOFED) and the Regional Health Bureau (RHB) to launch this ambitious expanded program in the fall of 2018. This four-year project will be partially focused in the Gedeo woredas of Yirgacheffe, Kochere, and Wonago. For those of you not familiar with Ethiopian political divisions, woredas are third-level administrative divisions in Ethiopia, under zones and then regions.

This expansion will improve the lives and livelihoods of coffee-farming families by delivering much needed women’s health services to these communities. Our move into Gedeo, with private support from the coffee industry, is part of our goal to scale up our programs to reach as many women as we can while maintaining our quality assurance standards. It’s very likely that during this expansion of our activities during late 2018, we’ll reach a cumulative total of 100,000 women screened.

Another step closer to our vision of a world in which all women are equally protected from the threat of cervical cancer by high-quality and innovative prevention services.

Ethiopia is the source of all coffee and the home of hundreds of indigenous varieties. While you might get some friendly debate on this, you could argue that Ethiopia is the most important coffee country in the world, and that Gedeo is the most important region in Ethiopia, and further, that Yirgacheffe is the most important town within Gedeo.   

Whichever side you come down on in this debate, coffee lovers all agree that there are only a handful of growing regions worldwide that have a distinct and wonderful award-winning profile as found here. As Grounds for Health readies for going into the Gedeo region, we can again be gratified that our support will help bring live-saving health care to another coffee community. Unarguably, a great thing.

Robert Fulmer
President, Royal Coffee Inc
Anchor Donor
Grounds for Health Board Member