Projects in Ethiopia
The NuSA project or Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture, was launched in 2016. Our program is focused on sustainable, bio-intensive gardening, increased poultry production, heightened beekeeping management practices, and nutrition education. The project has two major goals. The first, to improve food production and the second, to improve nutrition for households. The Nutrition Sensitive Agriculture project (NuSA) is being implemented by volunteers with community members to mobilizing farming families to sustainably increase availability and utilization of nutrient dense foods, diversify diets, and increase nutritional knowledge.
Global food insecurity is affecting millions of people across the globe daily. Here in Ethiopia, our volunteers work on sustainable agriculture projects to improve the livelihoods of farming families across the rural landscape. Our goal is to reach and train 4,500 individuals by 2023 on improved agricultural practices and nutritional awareness within the framework of Global Food Security standards.
The education project provides high school students and teachers with access to personal, academic, and professional development opportunities through improved English education. TEFL Volunteers in Ethiopia have the opportunity to participate in the Peace Corps TEFL Certificate program, an externally-validated credential based on 120 hours of training and two years of supervised teaching experience.
Volunteers are assigned to work at a high school and are responsible for a maximum of three English classes daily. Volunteers teach English and engage in teacher support programs that help local teachers develop professionally by focusing on English proficiency and instructional skills. All Volunteers plan and lead extracurricular activities such as student and teacher English clubs, computer trainings to support English language learning, library development and reading programs, and gender empowerment clubs.
The Health Program improves the health in Ethiopia through strengthening practices and care seeking behaviors. With local health professionals, Health Volunteers work directly with caregivers of children under five to promote the areas of water, sanitation, and hygiene-related diseases (WASH), nutrition, and early care seeking. Throughout their service, Health Volunteers focus on 8-10 families; conducting weekly home visits, performing analysis of barriers to practicing healthy behaviors, and implement action plans to help each family adopt healthy behaviors.
Health Volunteers also establish community groups who meet regularly to support each other address specific health needs. Additionally, Health Volunteers work within local secondary schools to implement health campaigns, focusing on: water, sanitation, and hygiene-related diseases (WASH), nutrition, and reproductive health practices.