Film: Hero (Ethiopia)

Related Content

Places
Causes

00:00:00: SOUND UP; [MUSIC PLAYS]
00:00:01: EXPLORE - AFRICA
00:00:07: ETHIOPIA – ABEBECH GOBENA ORPHANAGE
00:00:15: ABEBECH GOBENA, Orphanage Founder
00:00:18: ABEBECH: [TRANSLATED] I started this work because I picked up a child from its dead mother’s body. They had both starved. Another child I picked was from a dead father. I brought these two kids with me from their feeding camp. In year’s time, I had 21 children. My husband divorced me, his family also disowned me because I was doing something quite unusual. I was bringing up these children from my own resources. Then, they became 200 children. In 1988, I had the permit to raise these kids as orphans.; [MUSIC PLAYS – SHOTS OF GROUNDS AND PHOTOS OF ORPHANAGE]
00:01:19: ABEBECH: I have 5,311 children. The number is getting bigger because of AIDS. I have 6 branches now.
00:01:33: ABEBECH: Last year, I became one of the seven countries in the world that’s got a British Award. For me, it was a very big thing. However, this is not me who has done all these things. It is God’s work. The biggest thing is, of course, love, and selflessness.
00:01:55: TRANSLATOR: She touches the lives of six hundred thousand people, in one way or another. But, this is her very important job – the orphans. For me, this is paradise.
00:02:11: TRANSLATOR: She is showing us a very special child. This child, when he came to this place, he was HIV positive. Later on, it was gone. The disease was gone.
00:02:30: ABEBECH: When I take moms, whose babies I’m going to have, I want that those kids, when they are born, do not have the virus in them. If the birth is not handled properly, it (HIV) will transfer – If you have a health center, where people are trained to deal with that, it lowers the chances of the transfer.
00:02:51: ABEBECH: At Gobena, we have a school that educates people about AIDS. Having children without education is ending up like this. The main reason is poverty. Our government controls the system of adoption. It doesn’t take too long. It used to be one year. Now, most of the time, it’s two months.
00:03:19: ABEBECH: 175 kids have been adopted. I am very selective about who is taking the kids. If the family feels I need to be supported, they give to me, but I never put a price on a child.
00:03:43: ABEBECH GOBENA ORPHANAGE, www.telecom.net.et/~agos/
00:03:48: Explore.org
00:03:56: END OF FILM

Now Viewing: Hero

A woman of boundless love abandons the life she knew to start an orphanage in Ethiopia. Starting with a child she picked up from a dead mother's body, she now cares for over 5,000 children. An inspiration to us all.