Sisay Bekele: the boy who dreams of visiting Germany

 

Sisay Bekele is a 13 year old grade 8 student at BCI Academy. He lives with his mother and his younger siblings, a 6 year old brother and 1 year old baby sister. His father passed away when they were living in a rural area. He is currently partially sponsored. His favorite class at school is geography and his least favorite is spoken English. When he goes to university he wants to study geology. When he is not in class, he plays football (or soccer) with his friends. He also enjoys what he called "planting" or gardening growing sugar cane and coffee. Here is a photo of his garden outside of his room.

 

Sisay likes spending time with his grandfather in the summer break when school is not in session. He likes it because his grandpa is a farmer and they work the ground together. When school is in session, a normal day looks like class, tutoring, and on the weekend he plays with his friends and attends his local church. He said his favorite holiday is Christmas and when Christmas comes, he decorates the house. 

When it comes to Sisay's personality, he says he is a peacemaker as he does not like fights and what he does not like about himself is the fact he is slow to anger when someone touches him. Sisay has been in the BCI program for the past seven years and they have lived in their current home for 6 of those years. His favorite food is doro wat. Doro means chicken in Amharic and so this is a mixture eaten with injera, a sponge-like flat bread. (Doro wat is chicken wings usually mixed with boiled egg and shiro. It's a traditional holiday time food).

Sisay wants to travel to Germany someday because he likes their football players and there are more scientists there. When asked if he were to move to Canada, what would he miss about Ethiopia, he replied he would miss the holidays. Ethiopian holiday celebrations are specific to Ethiopia so that's why he would miss them.

His mom is working hard to provide for her family but life is hard for them. Sisay sleeps in his own room (unlike other BCI kids) and he sleeps on a mat on the dirt floor. This is his bed.

His mom stays busy raising her kids, making and selling injera and she also sells wood to construction areas nearby. She's a gobez (gobez means good job) mom because she works so hard to provide her family as well as putting her younger kids not of school age in a daycare. Even so, the money is not enough to make ends meet and as she is a widow and on her own, this is why and how Sisay qualifies for the BCI sponsorship program.

Sisay would like to say "God bless you" to his current sponsors for helping him and his family make it. He and his family appreciate what you are doing for them. If you would like to sponsor Sisay so that he is fully sponsored and receiving every benefit the full $90 sponsorship covers (medical, education, and food), please visit www.blessingthechildren.org/donate to begin your monthly contribution.