What Is Uryadi’s Village?
Equestrian show jumper Jennifer Fill-Crooks founded Uryadi’s Village in 2014. The non-profit organization creates sustainable solutions for orphans, vulnerable women, and children where the need is greatest in Ethiopia.
Who Do They Assist?
Uryadi’s Village helps those in need in Ethiopia, which has five million orphans – more than any other country in the world. In addition to orphans, hundreds of thousands of children are sent to orphanages that lack the resources to support themselves and the children in their care.
Click here to watch a video about Hannah, one of the orphans that now lives at Uryadi’s Village.
Initiatives for Uryadi’s Village include:
Wolayta Village: A vital part of Uryadi’s Village mission is to empower the local people to create a model orphan village that is self-sustainable and not reliant on foreign aid. The basics of consistently clean water, nutritious food, warmth, and safety must be met in order to break the cycle of poverty, disease, famine, and child mortality. The aim of Wolayta Village is to provide caring, family-style housing, produce nearly all of its own food, insure clean, available water, meet its power needs from renewable energy systems, provide a locally-run, on-site Health Clinic, and stimulate the local economy.
Currently, Uryadi’s Village is working to complete six more buildings in Wolayta Village. These include four additional family-style houses, a community kitchen and dining hall, and a classroom building.
Learn more about the Uryadi’s Village Sustainable Orphanage Project by watching this video.
Clean Water: In Ethiopia, more than half the population lacks access to clean water sources and 79% lack access to any type of sanitation system. ONE in FIVE children under the age of five years old die from water-related diseases. Both clean water and sanitation must be addressed together. Uryadi’s Village is working to install large water storage tanks with high capacity water filters, along with roof collection systems.
Permaculture: One of the paramount objectives of Uryadi’s Village is to enable orphanages and their associated communities, to become as self-sufficient as possible, especially with regard to nutrition. To achieve this goal, Uryadi’s Village is establishing sustainable agricultural systems such as Agroforestry and Permaculture, which mature into diverse “food forests”.
Orphanages: Money helps, but does not solve, systemic problems. Unless the environment that creates the situation is changed using a slow, but aggressive, shift in a basic ability to provide, the same cycle of poverty, disease, famine, and child mortality runs rampant.
How Can You Help?
Funds are needed to help complete the six remaining buildings for Wolayta Village. Donate today to help complete this amazing project!
Uryadi’s Village is a project of Empowerment WORKS, a US registered 501c3 charitable organization. All contributions in support of Uryadi’s Village are tax deductible as allowed by law.