Selamta Family Project

Poverty, brokenness and a lack of domestic adoption in ethiopia create the need for Selamta's programs. Our forever families are a permanent alternative to institutions or life on the street. Children come to Selamta from government orphanages and institutions. Selamta is transforming lives through these core competencies: wrap around care: our professional team focuses on education, health & wellness, psychosocial support and spiritual development, wrapping around each individual and Family to provide the structure and support necessary to grow and negotiate needs. Community integration: a focus on leveraging the system and resources of the local community including schools, churches, community programs and medical resources to ensure the needs of our families are met. When local resources aren't available, we reach beyond those geographical boundaries to get what's needed. Permanency: placement with a forever Family is permanent and even after a child is grown and establishing themselves, they always have a network of support from their Family and Selamta's professional team. While a culture of adoption is being nurtured in ethiopia, Selamta's forever families stand in the gap for children who need to know the love of a Family today. In fall of 2022, we established our two newest forever families from the 18 children we welcomed last year. Today our two new families are settling into their homes and figuring out what day to day life looks like. They are each creating a unique Family culture with their own rules, roles, and rhythms. Their days are filled with small everyday moments that hold big significance. One child shared, "our new Family home is totally different from the kids center. I love how we sit together now, how we help our mom make injera, and we also go shopping with her. We each take responsibility for our actions and don't mind sharing our things because we respect one another." Our education team continued to pour into our students, determining the best school placement for each child and ensuring individual education needs are met so each child can thrive. Virtual one-on-one mentor sessions matching our students with a professional from a career they dream to pursue continued through 2022. Health and wellness remained a priority at Selamta as our health team continued to navigate the residual effects of covid, treat typical acute and chronic conditions and seek the best care and resources for our children with disabilities. Trust based relational intervention (tbri) has become an integral part of the care our team provides to our families. Trbi is an approach seeking to heal relational trauma through healthy relationships using a balance of nurture and structure with a focus on attachment. Our team has shared their knowledge and experiences with tbri to other organizations led by our lead psychologist, a tbri practitioner. Spiritual development has been vital to our families amidst the civil unrest and global inflation of 2022. Over and over again our families have shared what an important role their faith in god has meant to them through it all. Being able to provide weekly bible studies, small group faith development and intentional prayer gatherings for all interested has strengthened our families and brought hope and confidence in place of fear. Selamta's community center is in the heart of our neighborhood. It serves our families, offices our professional team, and provides resources for the community. With a computer lab, lending library, counseling room and first aid clinic, Selamta families know where to go and who to call for whatever they need. Recognizing the transformational impact our community center's wrap-around care provides to set a strong foundation for building a Family, our team began to develop a strategy for the development of a new community center to serve as a support system for more vulnerable families in other parts of addis ababa. Empowering and equipping our families is always our first priority. Every Family needs a network of reliable support.