Woman crocheting kippah in Ethiopia. Courtesy: Sigrid Levi-Baum

By Sigrid Levi-Baum

Overcrowded classrooms with limited resources and shortened learning sessions as well as lack of adequate job training needed to secure employment to provide the basic necessities of life are both common scenarios in Gondar, Ethiopia affecting people living there. In the 1980s and 1990s, many Jews moved to Gondar, leaving behind their lives in the outlying rural areas, with the goal of going to Israel. Yet, they had no skills to live an urban life, and they are still in Ethiopia. There are two organizations that are working together to remedy these situations.

Meketa UK and Meketa USA are working to improve the education and work skills of the Jewish population, one of the most at-risk Jewish populations in the world. People live in crowded small places, with a lack of plumbing, insufficient amounts of food, and little chance of improving their lives without help. The people used to have hope that they would move to Israel, be reunited with family, and build new lives for themselves. Now that hope seems to be fading, as the Israeli government says it has moved all of the Ethiopian Jews they can for now. The Jews remaining in Ethiopia, over 8,000, need help to develop life skills and succeed in making a livable life for themselves and their families.

The two organizations, whose joint effort is referred to as Meketa (meaning support in Amharic), are taking a four-pronged approach: education; job training; microloans; and help with traditional weaving. Meketa has created an after-school club, basically a school either before or after the governmental 4-hour school.

At the Meketa club, each student is given books and is taught traditional subjects in a classroom with about 30 kids. The club has computers, so the children receive some exposure to technology, a library where the students can check out books, and a small meal each day, as there is often not enough food for them and their families. There is some support given to the other members of the families to help them all thrive.

In addition to regular subjects, the students all receive Hebrew lessons and are taught prayers. The students participate in Kabbalat Shabbat at the club weekly. Their students have been making strides, receiving better scores in their school classrooms, and even qualifying for college. Meketa has given a few college scholarships to allow those students who have achieved that level of learning to be able to afford to go to college.

There have been several different job training courses. Recently, Meketa funded a woman to take beautician training, and she was accepted in one of the premier salons in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Some adults are beginning to request specific training in an area where they see jobs and believe they could learn the skills needed for those jobs. Meketa has helped people to enroll in training for carpentry, baking, sewing, barbering and hairdressing. Some of the people have requested a microloan to buy a sewing machine after taking the sewing training. They are able to pay back the loan and support their family as a tailor or seamstress. One of the first loans was to a woman to buy a coffee pot. She set up outside a construction site and sold coffee and baked items to the workers. She eventually hired five other women to do the same business at five other sites. The six women are now supporting their families.

Other ways Meketa is making a difference include renting a space and setting up a few weaving looms. The weavers weave tallisim and kippot, which Meketa sells on websites helping people go back to traditional work and support their families.

In 2017, two members of the Austin Jewish community, Sigrid Levi-Baum and Michael Baum, went to Ethiopia on a Meketa UK-sponsored trip. They met the Gondar Jewish community, became aware of their needs, and were wowed by the spirit of the community. Levi-Baum and Baum helped form Meketa USA (a 501c3 charity) to educate people in the US about, and raise support for, the Gondar Jewish community. On their trip in 2017, Levi-Baum and Baum took a suitcase full of supplies that members of their congregation, Congregation Agudas Achim, and their friends donated. They are planning on going again this November, if conflict in the region recedes and travel to the region is allowed, and say they are willing to take a full suitcase of donated supplies again.

To learn more about the efforts and ways to help, contact meketausa@gmail.com or visit meketausa.org.