Our grassroots partners know firsthand that computer literacy can unlock unlimited possibilities - for learning, creating, sharing, exploring, and connecting individuals, communities, and economies to the digital world.  

And when computer literacy classes are paired with a psychosocial activity like creative arts therapy, the result is a well-rounded psycho-educational program that develops a broad range of skills while also invoking emotional healing and creative expression.

It's a holistic approach that we often refer to as head, hands, and heart - or, education, skills-building, and healing. An approach that understands that complex problems are not solved via single-issue interventions but rather by comprehensive solutions... and that psychosocial support is foundational to sustainable transformation. 

Our partner organization, Lola Children's Home, provides comprehensive support for nearly 30 orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. With your support, kids now have access to weekly computer literacy and music classes.  

Lola's executive director, Abebe, recently updated us on the progress of this new curriculum which, so far, has been successful in teaching kids tangible skills.  Under the tutelage of a mentor who teaches both computer skills and music, they kids now know how to:

• Open, save and close a document,
  
• Draw shapes and add insert text
• Group and ungroup items
• Create tables, and
• Type English, Amharic and Tigrigna letters, including writing their names
  
  

In music class, students are learning basic music sounds, notation, duration, and pitch as well as scales, key signatures, and how to perform exercises with the piano, drums, and the local Ethiopian instrument, Kirar.

A big thank you to our generous community for supporting this program! Your contributions are building confidence, technical and social skills, and healing opportunities that will have a lasting impact on these children and their community!

Remember the feeling of excitement after passing your driving test? Many of us have photos of ourselves clutching that hard-earned driver's license, with big goofy grins on our faces.

So it is for this youth in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, who recently passed his test as part of our local partner's commitment to skills training. Driver training classes are only one component of this youth's journey to becoming a tour guide in Ethiopia. Now that he has his license, he is one step closer to self-sufficiency, and we send him our heartfelt congratulations. 

This driving course was one of many classes funded by eBay Foundation and our community of everyday activists to provide vocational, job, and life skills training to 30+ young adults, giving them tools to build self-esteem, make positive life choices, and pave a path towards self-sufficiency. 

Recently, two other youth successfully found part-time employment as a result of this training program. We are excited to support our partner in launching the skills program again this summer.

What comes to mind when you think of Ethiopia? 

Starving children too weak to swat away flies sticking to their tear-stained and snot-smeared faces as portrayed by Live Aid in the 1980's? People dying in squalor, leaving behind orphaned and HIV positive children due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1990's? Though a product of their time, such startling images have done much damage to our perceptions, leaving the impression of a country where locals have neither dignity or the power to influence their lives and communities. 

Instead, we think of Ethiopia as a vast and varied landscape, having both a vibrant history and a growing, developing economy. A country able to assist its citizens by addressing the HIV/AIDS crisis via health education and ARV's and with a dynamic generation of young people who are developing responses, solutions and creating local technologies to help their fellow citizens.

It is this view of Ethiopia which informs our work with our partner organization in Addis Ababa. We are convinced that local, grassroots projects best serve local communities - our role is to simply empower them, rather than paternalistically exporting and enforcing western ideas of what works best. UNICEF advises the international support of community-based responses to the AIDS crisis, including "strengthening young people's life and survival skills" (2003). And as our partner and we are aware, children affected by HIV who were once coming for hospice care are now reaching young adulthood, and require the self-confidence and skills to become successfully self-sufficient .

The vocational program we fund has not been without its challenges, including attendance issues and a lack of full commitment from some of the youth (revealing perhaps deeper issues to be addressed). But its success stories include two of the eldest young adults who are making strides towards successfully leading independent lives:

• 'David'  got a job as a trainer at the center where his skills training took place because he excelled on his course and his attendance was excellent. Our partner will cover his rent, medical and clothing expenses for the next six months and will help him gain additional skills; he is interested getting his driving license for example. In the meantime, he is expected to cover his own food, sanitation and transport costs using his salary.
• 'Sam'  is 20 years old, had finished school and was looking for a career. He was hired at a women's beauty salon after completing the skills training offered in women's hair-dressing. 

Further, our partner is convinced that these courses are beneficial: 'We have 10 youth who will complete their high school education this school year. I hope all of them will make it to college /vocational training institutions. I think engaging these youth in additional vocational skill trainings will make a difference in their careers.' 

Thank you to the eBay Foundation and to our generous donors who support this project, knowing that real transformation requires patience, time, and locally-led solutions. 

Read why faces have been obscured and names changed in this post: Protecting Identities: why it's critical to our work

The drumbeat gets louder. The kids toss and turn. Their bodies contour in different shapes. They use their strength to build human pyramids. The crowd applauds. The performers bow down. The smiles are priceless. It seems like a good show for a circus, but it’s a breakthrough in a children’s home.

Maisha, our children’s home partner in Kenya, cares for twenty-two children who were orphaned mainly by HIV/AIDS, conflict and extreme poverty. They are provided with shelter, food, and education in a semi-rural farm environment outside of Nairobi.  These kids have gone through immense grief and trauma. Aside from basic necessities, they have unique psychosocial needs.

In 2013, Maisha introduced weekly drumming and acrobatic classes taught by local Kenyan professionals. One of the teachers they partnered with was Peter Waithaka, more commonly known as "Doc". Doc was a former member of the Kenya national acrobatic team called African Sakata Acrobats. He is currently a social entrepreneur, working on other projects that address educational and life skill needs among Kenya's underserved youth.

With the help of Doc and local drumming teacher, Robinson Owino, or "Robbie", the project has been a success. The classes not only help the kids learn how to do somersaults and synchronize the beat of the drums, it also helps develop their self-esteem. The kids learn about teamwork and the value of support in a community. These classes are also good for the community because they provide employment to the locals as well as inspiration. "The smiles they give us after learning a new acrobatic stunt or pyramid give us strength to persevere and be there for next class," said Doc. The teachers have become role models for the kids to look up to. And the experience brings joy to the children’s lives by providing a fun and healthy environment for them to heal. 

One of the Maisha girls was homeless, orphaned and exploited by the age of nine.  Five years later, despite making overwhelming progress in adapting to home life at Maisha, she still suffers from deep emotional trauma. She has a difficult time focusing in school and at home. Yet for the first time, her teachers are seeing her blossom in the acrobatic class.

They observe that some of the other youth, who are academically challenged and started school at a later age, are also doing well in these classes. Acquiring new skills and thriving in a new environment has helped them believe in their own potential. Our hope is that these experiences will guide them to make positive choices in the future.

In other parts of the world, Circus therapy is proving to be an effective tool for psychotherapeutic healing. Clowning about has helped boost confidence and encourage camaraderie among Finland’s disaffected youth as well as the elderly. Women in London who are suffering from depression are learning to fly trapeze while building their confidence and strength, and moving them towards employment. Young people at risk have discovered a safe haven to find their balance at Halifax’s Circus Circle.

Life can be a great balancing act and at some point, people find themselves walking on a tightrope. But it’s inspiring to know that there are many ways to help people make it all the way across such as teaching acrobatics to a little girl in Kenya to help her believe in herself. 

By Andrew Hughes

In 2011, I was traveling in San Jose for meetings at eBay, getting ready for my sabbatical in Africa. However instead of driving to the airport to fly home, I drove myself to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy.  Half a year and several infections later, I rescheduled my sabbatical, uneasy about traveling with a constant pain in my abdomen.

The first weeks of sabbatical were tough. I couldn’t enjoy myself, convinced that I had a life threatening gastroenterological disease, despite the doctors confirming that I was fine. And, then I arrived in Ethiopia. I was there to research projects to support through The Gracias Foundation, the nonprofit that I was about to launch (now called Global Gratitude Alliance). The kids we spent time with there are all HIV positive. Most are also orphans who have watched their mothers and fathers wither away in front of them. For the younger ones, you wouldn’t know about their stories just by looking at them. Like all kids, their laughter is music – they just want someone to share it with. For the older ones, the sadness in their eyes is deep. And, the uncertainty they have about the future is real.

We love eBay. Not just because many of our co-founders first met each other as eBay employees. Not just because eBay provides a way to reuse and recycle while empowering social opportunity for small entrepreneurs to compete in the global marketplace. And, not just because its motto "People are generally good" is also a shared belief at the core of our work in the world.

We also love eBay because of its philanthropic values. 

We are so proud to be selected by the eBay Bay Area GIVE Team as a recipient of an eBay Foundation grant for our project in Ethiopia which provides vocational training to young adults who are HIV positive. The youth have been taking classes this summer from hairdressing to computer maintenance, food preparation, and more, learning valuable skills about hard work, commitment, time management, and what it means to be a good employee.  

More importantly, however, the program, gives them a chance to build self-esteem, gain the tools needed to make positive life choices, and eventually pave the road to self-dependence.

A big Ethiopian Ameseginalehu (Thank You in Amharic, the local language)!

Check out the press release below (or click here to download).

(Reposted from The Gracias Foundation, now called Global Gratitude Alliance)

What does your profile pic look like on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram?  Is it a headshot, a photo of you with family or friends, or an icon or quote?  Do you use your birth name or a pseudonym?  

What we show to the world online says a lot about who we are.  We have a choice as to how we present ourselves. Sometimes we may even protect ourselves - blocking personal details from the scrutiny of the public. Likewise, we protect the identities of the children, teens and women we support.  We are sensitive to their rights to remain safe and secure. 

For example, some of the kids we work with carry the intense weight of two secrets they can't reveal to their classmates:  

1. They are orphans.
2. They are HIV positive.  

(Reposted from The Gracias Foundation, now called Global Gratitude Alliance)

This January, we're turning two!  We are thrilled by how much we've achieved together, and YOU are at the center of it all.  So, a huge Thank You (Gracias) to everyone!  We hope you'll enjoy our birthday video!

(Reposted from The Gracias Foundation, now called Global Gratitude Alliance)

It started with 18 teenagers in Ethiopia, orphaned by AIDS and living with the virus themselves.  Before antiretroviral therapy (ART) became accessible in 2005, our partner was more of a hospice than a children’s home. Now, kids live well into their teens and beyond. These particular teens were the first from our local partner NGO to move from institutional life at a larger compound to smaller, family-like transition homes last year. The purpose? For them to learn how to do just that - transition to the next phase of life: adulthood and independence. 

By Debbie Brupbacher (Reposted from The Gracias Foundation, now called Global Gratitude Alliance)

Thank you for supporting The Gracias Foundation  for which I was raising funds by taking part in the  Manaslu Mountain Trail race in Nepal.  I am glad to say I finished safely and I have been thinking how I would be able to write about such an experience in just a few paragraphs.  I find it very hard as I am still suffering from the Manaslu blues, but here is my attempt to share at least some of that experience.