Ethiopia has had many years of turbulent political development and no history of democracy to build on. And so, despite promising democratization reforms and awards from abroad, it once again fell into the abyss of authoritarianism, which in November 2020 culminated in ethnically-based violence and a subsequent humanitarian disaster in the north of the country - in the Tigray region.
Five Slovak non-governmental organizations (eRko – Dobrá novina, Nadácia Integra, Slovenská katolícka charita, SAVIO and Mary's Meals Slovensko) together with the Ambrela platform through their local partners directly in Tigray have been closely monitoring the worsening situation. In March 2021, in addition to its ongoing development and humanitarian projects, it established the Together for Ethiopia initiative along with an awareness and fundraising campaign, and subsequently launched a public fundraiser to help the Ethiopian people. You can read more about why the initiative was created, how the campaign took place in the Slovak Republic, what charitable organizations managed to do in the field during the year of the conflict, and what kind of response the initiative had with the media and the public, in the case study written for Umbrella by a researcher and manager for strategic communication: Dr. Boba Markovič Baluchová.
The study also mentions the 'matching fund' tool, which, although it was not possible to fully put it into practice in this campaign and multiply the proceeds of the collection, but in the future it can serve as a suitable form of financing intervention in the next humanitarian crisis. In the case study, on the basis of professional literature and interviews with the initiators of the Together for Ethiopia collection, observations and recommendations in the field of advocacy, promotion of aid and especially fundraising for future campaigns and public collections are processed. At the end of the publication, possible scenarios of how the conflict in Tigray may develop in the coming months are outlined. The document within the project 'Global Goals and Migration' was published in December 2021 with the support of the EU through the DEAR program and the Slovak Republic under the SlovakAid brand. It is called 'Educational and fundraising campaign 'Together for Ethiopia' as a response of Slovak non-governmental organizations to the conflict in the Tigraj region' and you can find it - in Slovak and English here: https://tvaremigracie.ambrela.org/novinky/pripadova-studia-o-kampani-spolu-pre-etiopiu/
Text and photo: Umbrella Platform https://tvaremigracie.ambrela.org