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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Fred Harter in Addis Ababa

‘A colonial mindset’: why global aid agencies need to get out of the way

A girl holds food items and looks at the camera as women look on behind her.
One of the thousands of children displaced by the violence in Ethiopia helps carry items donated to her family in Mekelle, Tigray’s regional capital, in 2021. Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty

Before civil war engulfed her Ethiopian home region of Tigray in 2020, Tsega Girma was a prosperous trader who sold stationery and other goods. But when hungry children displaced by the conflict started appearing in the streets, she sold everything and used the proceeds to buy them food.

After that money dried up, Tsega appealed to Tigray’s diaspora for donations. At the height of the war, her Emahoy Tsega Girma Charity Foundation provided meals to 24,000 children a day.

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