A Few Facts

Some people have asked why we chose Ethiopia as the country for international adoption. Different countries have different requirements, so our age and the number of years we have been married narrowed down our search at first. We knew we wanted an African baby, which narrowed it down even more. Then when we saw these facts, it was impossible to have opened eyes and turn our head the other way.

 

Here are just a few things about Ethiopia. Lord willing, we will be helping one child escape from these horrific circumstances.

• One in six children die before their fifth birthday

 

• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old

• 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition

 

• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000.

• Ethiopia has less than 1 dentist for every 100,000 people.

• The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years

• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)

• 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone, and there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia (this number varies, some say there is as many as 6 million orphans).

• Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa

• In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)

• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school.

5 million children in Ethiopia are orphans or have lost one parent.

 

More than half of Ethiopians lack access to clean drinking water.