The Selamta Project

A Unique, Sustainable Solution

The Selamta Project represents a unique community-based model for creating permanent, financially independent families, in regions ravaged by AIDS, poverty and despair. Our objectives are to establish a low-cost, scaleable program that creates sustainable change, and a platform for social renewal. Once the pilot is proven through a series of stages, we hope to expand beyond Addis Abbaba to other parts of Ethiopia, Africa and Asia.

A Five Stage Pilot

The Selamta Project in Ethiopia consists of five stages:

1. Establish a children's center that provides a loving, non-institutional family environment

2. Establish programs within the center to:

• Stabilize children medically, nutritionally and emotionally
• Reunite children with siblings, who have been scattered into orphanages or are living on the streets
• Integrate women of good character, who have been marginalized by death or abandonment, and train them in health, financial and family skills

3. Establish permanent family homes, each consisting of a mother, a supporting "auntie" and 8 to 10 children, in a constellation surrounding the children's center

4. Through use of micro-finance and entrepreneurial resources, make each family sustainably independent

5. Document and scale the model throughout Africa and Asia, through green field start-ups and partnerships

Our Success to Date:

Selamta's pilot project in Addis Abbaba has been online for three years, and stages 1, 2 and 3 above have been successfully implemented:

• The children's center and administrative operations are mature
• We have a total of 122 bright, loving and active children in the Selamta family
• Our children are happy, emotionally stable, thriving at home and at the top of their classes academically
• Eleven family homes have been established in the Bethel neighborhood completing our first constellation.
• We are extending assistance into the community to additional families, wherein the head(s) of household have AIDS, and whose children we expect to welcome into Selamta over time
• We have a strong Ambassadors program underway, with dozens of students and adult volunteers traveling to Selamta every year
• We are an almost entirely volunteer organization stateside.”

The Next Stage in our Journey

Though Selamta is successfully operating in Bethel, we are looking forward to the challenges ahead. We welcome any ideas, volunteer energy and financial support that will help us create new families and transform their communities.