Fathers’ day celebration was held for the fourth time at Addis Ababa city theater and culture hall on June 30th 2011. During the program different role model fathers shared their experience about how they raise their children and how they protect themselves and their family from HIV/AIDS, drama, music and panel discussion were used during the festive celebration. The day was celebrated with various governmental bodies comprising HAPCO, Federal Women and Children and Youth Affairs, education Bureaus school officials, clubs children, fathers from different project beneficiaries from the respective sub cities and donor agencies took part on this event.

Furthermore the day commemorated through media campaign to promote the significance of the day on prevention of child sexual abuse and exploitation, HIV and other SRH problems.

As Hiwot Ethiopia is a pioneer in celebrating Fathers day. Hiwot Ethiopia took the lead initiative in organizing this event. This Year Fathers Day was celebrated with the motto “I am good father: I protect myself and my family from HIV.”

Hiwot Etiopia MARPs Project team have recently completed giving Evening School Facilitators trainings based on the revised MARPs and MAP manual for 120 Evening Teachers (79 Male, 41 Female) in 20 Schools in four sub city in Addis Ababa: Arada, Kirkos, Bole and Yeka. This teachers are expected to co- facilitate with the eveinng student group discussion on the months to come.

The Evening schools peer Educator training was given on 28-30 April at Alpha university College. The 120 trained evening students (64 Male, 56 Female) were trained for two and half day on the issues of: “Act like a Man, What is HIV and AIDS, the Risks of HIV, STDs diseases, the Proper Use of Condoms, Lets talk about condom use, Sexual Violence, and Establishing Consent on Safe Sex” based on the edited MARPs maunal.

The group discussion in all the selected 20 schools is planned to launch starting May 1st 2011. It is expected to reach 6000 evening students out of which 75% is suppose to be a house maids.

The selected 12 Out of School Youth clubs Training was conduted for 108 youths. The 3 days training covered 12 edited sessions of MAP manual issues of; Act like a Man, Person and Things,Men, Gender and Health, Drugs in Our lives and Community, Pleasures and Risk, sexual consent, Level of HIV Risk, Alphabets of Prevention,Getting Tested for HIV/AIDS,Violence,What to do When I am Angry?and New courage’s.

Hiwot Ethiopia has just recently completed the terminal evaluation of its three year project with the Addis Ababa city government that run from the year 2007 to 2010. A discussion workshop with various governmental and non-governmental bodies and other relevant stakeholders was held on Wednesday, 23rd of March, 2011 at Semien Hotel, Addis Ababa.

The workshop was very essential as it facilitated for the community to understand the multitudes of projects that were undertaken to achieve the overall goal of the three year project, as well as to get valuable inputs on how to proceed with the coming years in order to create a better life for the children and youth of Ethiopia in general.

Various challenges and lessons learnt were thoroughly discussed in order to make the interventions most fruitful in accordance with the need of the community. The participants ensured their commitment to continue to work in collaboration with the organization and keep on achieving even more motivating results.

Hiwot Ethiopia has conducted a half-day familiarization workshop for the project titled, MARPs (Most at Risk Populations) today on 8th of April, 2011 at Semien Hotel, Addis Ababa.

The project is being implemented by Hiwot Ethiopia with a financial and technical support gained from EngenderHealth. It targets four sub-cities in Addis Ababa, namely; Arada, Yeka, Kirkos and Bole and runs from March-2011 up to September-2011. The project is mainly aimed at improving the knowledge, attitudes and Practices (KAPs) in the HIV-Prevention for vulnerable youths, evening students (the majority of whom are housemaids) and people with disabilities.

Various governmental bodies comprising of HAPCO, Children and Women’s Affairs, Youth and Sports, Education Bureaus and Schools from the respective sub cities took part in the discussions.

Consensus was reached to work together in collaboration with Hiwot Ethiopia in order to ensure the successful completion of the project.