Ethiopia

The SPAT project in Ethiopia began in 2009 and was initiated by the Dutch NGOs Lydia Zijdel Foundation and Respo International. The local implementation was carried out by the Ethiopian NGO Dires for Development Charitable Association, who is carrying out the project until today. Sport is an important focus for the NGO, it is their mission to use sports and movement as a means to improve the position of people with a disability in Ethiopia.

SPAT team in Ethiopia – 2021

SPAT working at Alemachen rehabilitation center in Addis Ababa

Introduction video about SPAT in Ethiopia

At the moment Dires employs twelve SPATs who provide sports activities for children with a disability in 16 schools around Addis Ababa. Currently, the program reaches about one thousand children every week. Next to this, Dires organizes large inclusive sports events to increase the visibility of the project.

Since March 2020 all activities were suspended due to the worldwide Corona virus Pandemic. Most schools were closed or kept limitations regarding sports activities. De SPATs job contracts were honored and they continued to receive salary in this period. From December 2020 the SPAT team has resumed some of their activities, and in the first quarter of 2021 the SPAT program has resumed at most of the schools we work with in Addis Ababa.

The plan was to expand the SPAT team in 2020 and 2021 with a new generation of SPATs, and to expand the program to other parts of Ethiopia. But because of the Corona Pandemic all these plans have been suspended. The project was relying for a large part on income that was generated through tourism. This has stoped completely. The entire focus is now on survival and sustaining the project in Addis Ababa. Thanks to contributions of the Dutch charity Vrienden van Effatha and some private individuals, we seem to be able to manage until 2022. We are grateful for that. But because of the circumstances we had to downsize supporting staff of the SPAT program. Two managers, a cook and a driver had to be let go off. The SPATs are now managing the project themselves, which is part of their new job description.

Despite everything we remain optimistic and active. In March 2021, mr Anne Kuipers from The Netherlands came to Ethiopia to work with the SPAT team. He made effort to keep the knowledge up to date, and we did some workshops and activities in the Southern regions of Ethiopia. But a structural enrollment of the project outside Addis Ababa has to wait until revenues from tourism come back.