Child-Help Award for Extraordinary Performance 2023: Winner Announcement

We are happy and proud to announce this year’s winner of the Child-Help Award 2023.

The winner is HOPE SBH, a support group from Ethiopia, and the award was given to the executive director, Beza Haile, at the workshop that Child-Help organized in Kizimkazi, Zanzibar during 11th – 13th June.

The criteria for this year’s award is extraordinary performance of support groups in 2023. Based on the limited resources HOPE SBH had this year and the persistent instability in the country as a result of war on one side, and their ability to serve the children with SBH, and their families on the other side, the Child-Help International management team voted and arrived to this year’s winner.

Here is more about HOPE SBH and some of the activities they have done in 2023:

HOPE SBH is an association of parents of children with spina bifida and/or hydrocephalus (SBH) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The objective of the organization is to create a better future for the children with SBH, and their families.

In 2023, in terms of activities, they:

Organized a high-level sensitization workshop for 50 Parliamentarians on the national burden of NTD and the need of high level attention to preventive measures nationally.
Distributed 400 shunts
Made high-level advocacy for mandatory food fortification
Provided shelter to 182 children and their mothers, through the House of Hope
They followed up on 332 children. Some of them had their first surgery this year (253), and some of them were followed-up as a part of regular 6 and 12-month followup process, to make sure the child is recovering well, and that they are receiving proper aftercare.
Trained 60 parents in physiotherapy and 45 health extension workers in Addis Ababa on identification and referral of children with SBH
Parent support activities reaching for more than 200 parents
Organized 3 trainings a week on Continence Management