Amare Merka

Deputy Director

I am incredibly humbled and honored to join Life Center as the new Deputy Director directly accountable to the Executive Director.  As I step into this role, I am acutely aware of the opportunities and challenges facing the resident charities like Life Center and the disadvantaged communities we serve.

Among existing heartbreaking realities, it is obvious that significant number of widows several of them raising of kids live in extreme poverty where basic day-to-day needs are unmet.  We have considerable number of children that have lost both parents (“double orphan”) and children that have lost either one parent (“single orphan”). Our cities and towns have vast number of children who are living on the streets, exploited for labor, and victims of trafficking. According to 2021 data of Central Statistics Agency in Ethiopia, nearly all children under 18 are deprived of adequate housing and sanitation, and almost a half are deprived of adequate nutrition and safe drinking water. More than half of children aged 5-14 years – 57 per cent – are deprived in the education dimension, driven mainly by no school attendance or delayed school attendance relative to age.

I believe that Life Center will significantly raise required funds, develop and strengthen its capacities and partnerships to drive real on-the-ground changes in our needy communities through designing new approaches, developing grant proposals for institutional fundraising and advancing our strategic goals. We will be examining how to offer new and expanded services both thematically and geographically. Thus, all of us at the Life Center from the staff to the board to our grantees recognize that now is not the time to step back but rather to step forward.  

We will also improve the way we work as an organization. After one year, we will be refreshing and revitalizing our strategic plan and vision for how we deliver more impact, exploring new systems and technology to better serve our partners and clients.

 This is a going to be a team effort. And I am deeply grateful to the entire team here at Life Center – our Board Chairperson, and all the Board Members; partners and stakeholders such as the saving and credit committees; woreda, city and sub city level government bodies – for their unreserved support and contributions for successful achievements of Life Center. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the Founder, Executive Director and guiding spirit of Life Center - Mulu Girmay Woldetinsae, for her unwavering dedication and generosity leading this amazing work i.e. transforming the lives of Orphans and empowering Widows with skill development and micro loans for these past 10 years in selected sub-cities of Addis Ababa and the principal city of Wag Hemera Nationality Administration in the Amhara National Regional State of Ethiopia. 

As Life Center looks to adapt and respond to the changing needs of our most needy communities, I hope we together can develop game-changing strategies that drive innovation, strengthen our partners, and disrupt the cycle of our multidimensional poverty so that ensure hope for the hopeless in the face of various calamities.