We are a charity that works to provide advice and support to children with learning and communication difficulties in Ethiopia. The charity is founded by a group academics and practitioners who share the belief that, in a world that is capable of doing a lot of things, learning and communication difficulties should not hold children back from achieving their potentials. The pain that child who struggles to express herself due to a speech difficulty or the anxiety and self-hatred that a child with a learning disability experiences when he’s told to leave school because he is too stupid to learn can, and must, be overcome.

We are dedicated to work to improve the lives of this group of children by providing the support they need, creating and increasing awareness about such difficulties, co-operating with schools so that they can accommodate these children and by supporting research which can improve the lives of the individuals in question. We are passionate about ending the pains of that these children and their parents have gone through and helping the children learn and communicate well. We understand that this is an enormous undertaking but we also have people on our side – talented and committed partners (here in Ethiopian and abroad), volunteers, supporters and staff who share the same values.

The general objective of the charity is to create and improve awareness of learning and communication difficulties and provide support and train professionals to be able to assess and manage children with learning and communication difficulties. Some of the specific objectives of the project include:

• disseminating information about learning and communication difficulties,
• providing support and advice to students with learning and communication difficulties,
• devising language-specific assessment protocols,
• training teachers to assess and handle children with learning and communication difficulties,
• following up, preventing wrong diagnosis,
• evaluating outcome following assessment and intervention,
• consulting with stakeholders other than school teachers and parents, e.g., ministry of education, higher institutions, etc. on how to improve the school systems in order to accommodate children with learning and communication difficulties.

So, our targets are mainly schoolchildren with learning and communication difficulties and they are identified/selected based on assessment procedures that are widely used worldwide. In order to pick up children who may not know that they have learning difficulties, group assessments are carried out and children with possible learning and communication difficulties will be identified from the groups.