OUTREACH AND SERVICE


St. Matthew’s Breakfast Club

The Breakfast club was started in May 2007 to serve the needs of 40 of the poorest children in our neighbourhood. The children receive a cooked breakfast at 7:00am every weekday, which goes a long way in meeting their daily nutritional needs. This has great benefits, socially and educationally. The project costs about 4,200 Birr (UKŁ225 or US$450) per month to run. To help us continue with this good work, please click on Financial Support in the menu on the left.


ANGLICAN CHURCH IN ETHIOPIA

The Anglican Church in Ethiopia, under the Area Bishop for Ethiopia & the Horn of Africa, the Right Revd Andrew Proud, is responsible for several ministries of outreach and care in and beyond Addis Ababa. These include the following.


St. Matthew’s Community Library

In 2005, St. Matthew’s opened a Community Library on the church compound, to serve the children of this neighbourhood. All children in Ethiopia are taught and examined in English from grade 7 onwards, but not many have access to adequate text and reference books. St. Matthew’s Community Library is furnished with textbooks covering the whole Ethiopian national curriculum. Children living in this and neighbouring Kebeles use the library throughout the week, as a reading room. Over 900 students are currentlyregistered and about 200 students visit the Library regularly, some every day. Informal English language classes are also offered to children locally, through the Library. Volunteer help is always needed and welcomed. A vital aspect of this project is the partnership we have established with the local Kebele, through whom we currently support 80 children (from the poorest of the poor families) by providing them with school uniforms and fees every year.


St. Matthew’s Community Library Scholarship Fund

The St Matthew’s Community Library Scholarship Fund has been established to enable Library members improve their English and IT skills. A group of about 40 boys and girls in Grade 11 and another 40 girls in Grades 9 & 10 do a Summer School at the Study Centre (part of the British International School). From this initial group, about half the Grade 11s will be selected to receive extra tuition in English and IT over the next academic year (ie, their Grade 12 year, before university entrance). The objective is to help these Library members improve their chances of university entrance. They must achieve good grades in all subjects, but as the medium of teaching is English, better knowledge and skills here helps all other subjects. Developing their computer skills will also improve their opportunities, both for university entrance and for other jobs. It will cost about 920 Birr (UKŁ50 or US$100) per student to attend the six-week Summer School and a further 1,650 Birr (UKŁ90 or $175) for each student to have the extra tuition Friday evenings and Saturday mornings for a year. The students will also receive a travel allowance to enable them to get to and from the Study Centre for each session and a stationery allowance. The total budget for 2008/09 is 106,500 Birr (UKŁ5,500 or US$11,000). To help us with this project, please click on Financial Support in the menu on the left.


The western region of Ethiopia

St. Matthew's helps support and resource over 40 parishes outside Addis Ababa, most of which are in the Gambella region. All of these parishes are overseen by the Area Bishop for Ethiopia and the Horn of Africa, the Right Revd. Andrew Proud.

St. Luke's Gambella is the oldest of these churches, with a well-established Ethiopian Nuer congregation. There are also congregations in and around the remote towns of Itang, Kuergeng and Tiergol, close to the Sudanese border, and in Debre Zeit, south of Addis Ababa. Some of these parishes still need appropriate church buildings and basic resources. We also have twelve congregations in four refugee camps, also in the western region. Many of these churches are growing and much of the Area Bishop’s time is spent providing support and training to the clergy and lay readers, visiting the congregations and fund-raising.


TEE

A Theological Education by Extension (TEE) programme was established in 2006, to provide in-post training for the clergy and church leaders, mainly from the churches in the western region. Some 18 tutors receive intensive training three times a year. They then pass on what they have learned to over 200 more people in groups back in their home churches. There is also an imaginative, drama-based evangelisation programme running and we are working on a catechumenate programme to be available in all western region parishes.

In the planning stage

Other programmes are still in the planning stage, but we expect to have them up and running within the next year or so:

  • We shall develop the basic Peace and Reconciliation programme currently running on an ad hoc basis in the western region parishes.


  • Plans are in place to build an Anglican Training Centre, Community Library and new church in Gambella town, on new land given by the regional government.


  • A literacy and development programme will be established, benefiting many women across the region.


  • We are able to offer experience exchange programmes and sabbatical opportunities to Anglican clergy and seminarians from elsewhere in the Anglican Communion.

    • For further information on any of these projects, please contact the Anglican Church in Ethiopia office, tel. 00251 116 623578, email Anglican.church@ethionet.et



    Tel: 0111 233260 | Fax: 0111 239930 | Email: enquiries@stmatthews-addis.org