Parents International Ethiopia

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Boge Gebre with Susannah Dakin, a founding board member of Parents International Ethiopia, in 2002. Gebre was in the U.S. to receive an award from Bioneers, a progressive environmental organization that brings thousands to its convention from around the world annually. 		Parents International Ethiopia is a California-based charitable organization 501(c)(3)that supports efforts to reduce harmful traditional practices against African women and that raises awareness about these efforts in the United States.

PIE was founded by Bogaletch Gebre in 1985 in Los Angeles following a resurgence of famine, drought, and political upheaval in Ethiopia. Gebre was a doctoral student in epidemiology at UCLA at the time and sought to raise literacy rates in her homeland and give her people the tools they needed to help themselves and reduce dependence on cyclical foreign funding. PIE sent more than 250,000 books and other needed supplies to Ethiopia.

Through the support of a Tides Foundation donor-advised fund and many individual donors, Gebre was able to return to Ethiopia in 1997 to realize a lifelong dream: to establish a center in her native region of Kembatta to help empower women and their families. Today, that organization, Kembatta Mentti-Gezzima Tope (KMG), http://www.kmgselfhelp.org has full indigenous NGO status, over 30 employees, offices in Addis Ababa and and Durame, and funding from more than two dozen international donors, foundations, and international aid organizations. Durame is the capital of the Kembatta-Tembaro Zone in southern Ethiopia.

As KMG grows, PIE is committed to helping replicate its extraordinary success fighting female genital excision and other harmful customary practices that crush the bodies and spirits of girls and women. PIE and its supporters realize that such practices persist for many reasons, but largely because communications are poor in rural African communities and because insufficient public attention is given to these issues elsewhere. PIE is in a unique position to serve as a nexus between these two worlds, to enhance understanding not only of such harmful practices, but of the positive solutions now being developed by those whose voices have long been muted.

PIE provides updates about KMG and related issues to a growing mailing list of private donors, funders, media, and others. To be included or to make a tax-deductible donation to Parents International Ethiopia, please see contact information below.

PIE Mission Statement:
The mission of Parents International Ethiopia is twofold: The first: to support women and their families in Africa in their efforts to eradicate harmful customary practices against women and build healthy, sustainable communities. The second: to educate the U.S. and international public regarding these efforts and the problems they address.

We implement this mission by:
• Raising funds to support these efforts;
• Raising public awareness about the nature of harmful customary practices against women in Africa
• Developing innovative and replicable strategies to educate
international and U.S. media, donor organizations and individuals, policy makers and the public at large
• Arranging exchanges and events that give spokespersons from subject communities exposure to audiences in the United States and abroad

CONTACT US:
Sarah Vaill
Parents International Ethiopia
2901 Ocean Park Blvd, Suite 201,
Santa Monica CA 90405
kmg.pie@verizon.net
t. 310-396-2062
f. 310-396-2827