Partnership Ethiopia Inc

In 1971 our founder, Gayle Bogenschneider, came to northern Ethiopia as a volunteer nurse. She worked outside the city of Aksum, on a compound in the town of Selekleka. The compound was home to a Lutheran-run primary and secondary school, as well as trade schools in carpentry and farming, and a hospital. 

After two years, Gayle returned to the US, but stayed in touch with a number of young students she had befriended, and continued to sponsor their educations. Soon after her return, Ethiopia was plunged into decades of famine, drought and political chaos. Only about 15 years ago, the country began to return to normalcy. Education and healthcare are priorities, as the country works to build the necessary infrastructure to eliminate the dubious distinction of being one of the poorest countries in Africa.

Soon after turmoil began in the mid-1970s, Gayle lost contact with her students. Only a few years ago, she was able to find one of them, now a physician living in the US. He put her in touch with others, and she traveled back to Ethiopia in the fall of 2013 for a reunion with them. 

Touring the places she had known so well, Gayle was appalled by what had happened in Selekleka in the 40-plus years since she had left: the hospital where she had worked was abandoned and the only health services available were in a run-down health center in town. They lacked the capability to even perform C-sections safely. Women and babies were dying. The closest hospital was in Aksum, a half-hour away by car, and the health center had only one, unreliable ambulance.

The men of Selekleka told Gayle, “Our wives are dying; our babies are dying. Help us!” She came back to the US determined to do whatever she could. A few months later, Partnership Ethiopia, Inc. was established with the mission to nurture hope through healthcare and education.

Partnership Ethiopia’s first task was to establish a relationship with Aksum University, which had been put in charge of overseeing health and education in Selekleka. Agreements were signed with the university in early 2014, during the same trip on which the first U.S. physician came to teach for two weeks at the university’s College of Health Sciences. Plans were made to continue supporting the university medical programs, assist in equipping the Referral Hospital that was then under construction, improve healthcare in Selekleka and provide support for the primary and secondary schools still functioning on the compound where Gayle had once lived.

Partnership Ethiopia’s interest in Aksum and Selekleka drew attention from higher levels of the Ethiopian government. Even while the organization was raising funds for the modest project of building bathrooms and showers on the school compound in Selekleka, the government began reconstruction and expansion of the abandoned hospital and provided new surgical equipment to the health center, allowing C-sections to be safely performed.

But with a mostly rural population of 95 million people, the government can only do so much in any one area of the country. With the Referral Hospital in Aksum poised to open and serve the district’s quarter-million people, and the primary hospital in Selekleka under construction, there aren’t funds to fully equip either facility. Partnership Ethiopia has committed to ship medical equipment from the U.S., to outfit the two facilities.

Partnership Ethiopia can do this, thanks to our relationship with Project C.U.R.E., another U.S. organization that refurbishes donated medical equipment and supplies. Each 40-foot cargo container packed with approximately $500,000 in equipment can be delivered for just the cost of shipping – about $25,000. Providing the needed equipment through Project C.U.R.E. has become the most crucial priority for Partnership Ethiopia. It will take multiple container shipments to fully equip the hospitals.

Now the challenge is to begin shipping. Every container will bring new possibilities, new lives saved, new hope to the people of Ethiopia.