"I changed my vision into Reality!" Gizew Eshete
Gizew Eshetie, aged 25 & a father of a child, lives in Wonberoch Kebele, Ebenat woreda. He completed grade 9. Due to a car accident near his village, he become physically impaired (his leg) at the age of nine in 2004 . Now, he is using an artificial leg instead of his natural left leg.
"I was very poor and living with disability. I often used to drink alcohol and clash with local people, and my families were troubled due to my bad habits. I insulted and disrespected the villagers", he said. To make him self-reliant in livelihood, his family provided him 0.5 hectare of land, and he married W/ro Bamilakua Mihretie in 2015. Their livelihood base was agriculture. But, they couldn't secure the family's consumption.
Gizew is among beneficiaries of ORDA's Inclusive Food and Nutrition Security (IFNS) project. Inclusive Food & Nutrition security (IFNS) Project (2018-2022) works in areas of Ebenat (South Gondar Zone), West Belessa and East Belessa (Central Gondar Zone) woredas. The project has a total budget of 89 million birr (2,726,743.00 EURO) secured from German Government (BMZ) facilitated by CBM. It has an objective to benefit 9,000 impoverished households by supporting them to secure their food via mitigating climate change vulnerability in those intervention areas.
Gizew had two sheep, 0.5 hectare land and small grass hat before he joined the project. He remembered that life was full of difficulties. Though Group loan was commonly provided in the area through Micro-finance institution, members lack confidence to include him in their group because of his disabilities. As a result, he never got access to loan services to engage on diversified income generating activities. But when IFNS project included people with disabilities in the mid of 2018, he became one of the targeted beneficiaries.
At the beginning, the project established a Village economic and saving association and beneficiaries started to save money. Gizew joined the VESA & took loans for four rounds from his saving association and engaged on sheep rearing and trading. Currently, he created an asset of 11 sheep for rearing and two for resale. Every two weeks, he got Birr 250-300 through sheep trading in local market. "I have more than Birr 4,000 in my account", he said.
In addition, he received agricultural input like wheat, teff and potato seeds and egg laying chicken from the project. He said that the support motivated him to work day and night.
I produced 5 quintals of wheat, 1.5 quintal of teff and 8 quintal of potatoes which are estimated about Birr 19,250.00. Besides, his wife also earned more than Birr 2,900.00 from sell of eggs in local market from poultry farm.
Gizew had a plan to open a small consumer goods shop and to change his small grass hat with corrugated iron sheet roof by end of 2020. "Since I have money, I rented a farm land for crop cultivation. Thanks to ORDA -CBM IFNS project because they supported me to change my vision into reality",he exclaimed.