People in Need to build two new schools in Ethiopia

People in Need to build two new schools in Ethiopia
PRAGUE, Dec 19 (CTK) - The People in Need (PINF) humanitarian relief agency will use the 1.75 million crowns that it collected this year in cooperation with the Junak scouting association to build two new schools in south Ethiopia in 2006, the agency's coordinator for Ethiopia Ondrej Zapletal told CTK today.
The Czech humanitarian relief agency already opened one school in Ethiopia this year that it built with part of the collected money.
Zapletal told CTK that PINF decided to build schools in Ethiopia in part because only half of the country's children attend school. He said that in some villages up to 150 pupils are packed into a single classroom that is no bigger than a typical central European living room.
Most schools in the country are made of mud and do not have glass windows. Ethiopian illiteracy rates surpass those of even most other subsaharan countries.
Neighbouring Eritrea last week expelled a UN mission from its territory and some experts predict the two countries are again heading for war. Zapletal nevertheless expects the political situation in Ethiopia to remain calm.
Possible security problems are anyhow unlikely to endanger the Czech humanitarian project. The PINF's permanent mission, with a staff of four, is located in a remote area in the south of the country near the city of Awassa.
The upcoming Christmas holidays will not have too much effect on the development of project, noted Zapletal. Although Ethiopians are overwhelmingly Christian, they celebrate Christmas on a different date because the country still follows the Julian calendar.
(USD1=24.223 crowns)
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