Barefoot Initiative

In 2004, my husband Sunil, 38, my brother Aidan Glasby, 27, and I, went to Ethiopia. We’d been there before and were returning with the $12,000 we’d raised, planning to build a school, says Kyra Glasby, 25.

We chose a place in Ethiopia called Yooren which is in the Afar, the driest place in the world. Not long after we got there we watched helpless as a one year old child died of malaria because his mother couldn’t get him medicine. All we could do was bathe him to reduce his fever a little. We had to wait three days to get a vehicle to take him to the nearest clinic two hours away. He died in his mum’s arms on the way to the clinic. It was then that I knew there was a greater need for a clinic than a school.

With the help of the Yooren people, we spent two months building the clinic from plantation timber and cement blocks. We designed it in the shape of the five pointed Star of David, a sacred symbol in Islam. And we painted it in bright colours so it could be seen by anyone who needed it. We equipped the clinic with the proper medical supplies from the Ethiopian Ministry of Health and then handed it over to the Government who promised they would staff it with a nurse and keep it stocked with medicines.

While we were there we lived in a hut the Yooren people had given us, we ate the same food as them and we slept on the mud floor of our hut. “It was like an extended camping trip,” Sunil joked.

We returned to Australia in early 2005 to raise more money. At the end of the year and two days after my last nursing exam I returned to Yooren with Aidan, my midwife friend Zeshi Fisher and a film maker, Sieh Mchawala. Sieh is making a documentary of this trip. When we went back we were relieved to find the Government had kept its word and the clinic was up and running. “We’ve achieved what we wanted,” I said to Sunil. “We were worried that nothing would be done but everyone’s happy and they want to keep it going.”

We all lived together in our hut and we had to make sure we got on, as there was nowhere to go if we didn’t. The Yooren people cook inside their huts over open fires, which makes them very smoky. We cooked outside our hut and they laughed at us. They said, “You’ll get malaria because the smoke inside helps to keep the mosquitoes away. I said, “I’ve already had malaria and so has Aidan!”

We asked the women what other things they needed. They said, “Something to help us carry water from the river because it’s a long way and the water bags are heavy.” So we came up with the idea of a water cart. Aidan designed the carts with the women and we built them from recycled materials – a steel frame and wheels. The women set up a committee and they are in charge of the carts – they love them.

We came back to Australia in February 2006, and we’ve registered our name as Barefoot Initiative. We’re raising funds for our next trip at the end of the year. Sunil says, “We want to make the clinic solar powered, help the locals build their own water filters and build a community garden so they can grow vegetables”.

Before we left the women said to me, “You should have a baby by now. Don’t come back until you are pregnant.” They spat on my stomach saying, “That will make it happen.”

Six months later Sunil and I found out we were pregnant, and in June 2007 I gave birth to our beautiful, healthy baby son, Kalci.  We hope to return soon to see our friends in the Afar.

We’d like Kalci to experience the sharing and friendship that gives the people of the Afar a special place in our hearts.

For more information about the Barefoot Initiative go to www.barefootinitiative.org

Tagged as: afar, barefoot initiative, community initiative, ethiopia, glasby, volunteer abroad