Impact
You can take the boy out of the Peace Corps …
Nearly 40 years ago, a fresh-out-of-college Bob Gausman decided he wasn't ready for a "real job" so he joined the Peace Corps.
He was sent to Ethiopia, a country he had barely heard of and knew even less about. Bob proceeded to spend two years in a rural village forming weavers' into cooperatives which were designed to help them operate more efficiently.
It was the start of what would become a lifelong passion for the country and its people and a crash course on the enormous challenges they face.
In 2007, after a 30 year career in real estate appraisal, Bob happened to hear about another former Peace Corps volunteer who had gone back to Ethiopia and built a school.
He knew right away that this was something he had to do as well.
"There are five million eligible Ethiopian children who are going without education," Bob said. "And many of those that do have access have to walk four or five miles a day."
Bob knew that his life's savings would probably be enough to fund the construction of a school in a highly marginalized community so he began searching for a foundation to help him.
"Fortunately, I stumbled across A Glimmer of Hope online and saw that they had already built hundreds of schools throughout Ethiopia. They were exactly what I was looking for," he said.
By February 2008, Bob was in Ethiopia visiting villages in the Southern Region trying to identify the community that could most benefit from his support. When he came to the village of Bale, he knew he had found the right spot.
At the time, in order to provide even a semblance of education for their children, the leaders of Bale had hired a person with barely a high school education to teach them. Day in and day out, this "educator" was conducting classes under a tree.
With help from A Glimmer of Hope, construction began on a new eight-classroom school in April 2008. The facility would also include a multi-purpose room, a principal's office and latrines.
By October, the school was operational and more successful than anyone had expected.
"When we did our original survey, the officials estimated that as many as 1,000 students may be attending when classes began. However, on the first day of school, 2,050 children registered for class. Thirteen additional teachers had to be hired and a split shift schedule was implemented to accommodate all of the students," said Bob, who was present for the school's official inauguration in November, something he described as an overwhelming experience.
But the story doesn't end there. While touring in Ethiopia, Bob noticed that most schools had few, if any, books or textbooks available.
"We were in classrooms where the students only had one or two storybooks that they simply read over and over," Bob said.
So now, through his Central Highlands Foundation, Bob is in the process of gathering roughly nine tons of books and educational materials which will be sent to Ethiopia via container later this year. To learn more about how you can donate books and educational materials, please visit the Central Highlands Foundation's website at www.Bekha.org.
