2016 is a special year for CRED Partner Ellilta-Women at Risk (EWAR) as it reaches its twenty-year milestone of working to bring Ethiopian women out of prostitution. We wish to help celebrate this milestone by sharing some of the stories of the ladies impacted.
Aynalem is in her early 30’s and first came to EWAR twelve years ago when she was working on the streets as a prostitute. It was through the love and care shown by the outreach workers who go out onto the streets each night that Aynalem started to realise that her life could perhaps take an alternative direction to the one she was on at that time.
Over the past twelve years, Aynalem’s life has drastically changed and she now works as a counselor at EWAR, walking alongside new women in the program that are making the risk-filled journey from darkness to light. Aynalem cherishes the transformation that she has witnessed in these women, and is thankful for the second chances in life that they are able to experience.
In the next twenty-years, Aynalem hopes to see EWAR expand into different locations across the country, beyond the current Addis Ababa, Nazareth, and Bahir Dar project sites, so that more women and their children are offered the opportunity to leave a life of prostitution.
The difficult reality that EWAR faces with every one of its rehabilitation cycle in-takes is that many women hear about the program and express serious interest; however, they have to be turned down due to the limited amount of space and resources that the program can currently provide.
Aynalem longs for a day when this will no longer be the reality, and instead, that every Ethiopian woman who wants to embark on the risky journey from darkness to light will find an EWAR community to companion her on this hope-filled journey.