Emmanuel Development Association

How to Keep Children Safe Before, During and After a Wildfire - Save the Children Canada Discover how one teacher in Ethiopia is helping children with disabilities access inclusive, quality education.

🏆 EDA Selected as the Only Ethiopian Representative for the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund

We are honored to announce that Emmanuel Development Association has been selected as one of 27 beneficiaries in the first cohort of the FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund.

Out of more than 3,500 applicants worldwide, EDA is proud to be one of only five organizations selected from Africa—and the only organization representing Ethiopia.

Today, we join a global community of grassroots organizations committed to expanding access to quality education and sports opportunities for children in underserved communities. This grant will directly support our “EduPlay Ethiopia” initiative, helping children reintegrate into school through the transformative power of football and education.

We extend our sincere gratitude to Global Citizen and FIFA for this incredible partnership and shared commitment to empowering children and communities.

Learn more about the fund and our work here:
FIFA Global Citizen Education Fund Grantees



Dr. Tessema Bekele, Executive Director

The gathering of community members below represents Reflect Circle groups engaged in discussions on local development issues and collective leadership decision-making in the Oromia region. Over the years, these groups have grown into a Union that responds to community needs by mobilizing local resources to promote sustainable and long-term social transformation.

The Emmanuel Development Association (EDA) is an Ethiopian charity and development organization, established by Dr. Tessema Bekele and his family in 1996 through personal financial contributions and operational since 1997. EDA is a humanitarian, development, and advocacy organization dedicated to working with children, youth, families, and their communities in different regions to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. EDA is a learning organization; a community of practice (CoP) theory evolves naturally because of its members' common interests. Our development philosophy, at the grassroots level in a particular domain or area deliberately intends to gain and share knowledge along with team members and practitioners through the process of sharing information and experiences with the group so that members learn from each other, and have an opportunity to develop creativity and innovation. EDA is currently equipped with 250 full-time staff,
3400 community volunteers, and working with 15 major donors & 19 projects.

Background

As a child focus organization, the Emmanuel Development Association (EDA) has operations across five regional states and one global office in Kabul-Afgahnistan: Addis Ababa, Amhara, Oromia, Afar, Sidama, and SNNPR responding to the needs of populations in complex protracted situations, providing both lifesaving and long-term sustainable development program, complementing the efforts of government and other humanitarian partners. Our global program in Afghanistan in Eastern Asia is addressing the same target community in five provinces since 2022. Emmanuel Development Association effectively manages programs in a range of sectors including health, nutrition, water, sanitation, hygiene (WASH), quality education (primary and Early Childhood & Development), Rapid Emergency Response, food security, and livelihoods, Human Rights programs (advocating for Child Labour, Child & Women Rights, child protection, safe migration, and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) as a cross-cutting) in Triple Nexus model. Emmanuel Development Association is positioned to respond to the needs of those affected by natural and human-made disasters. Since today, EDA has implemented over 260 projects worth over USD $ 500000 million and successfully reached over 35 million children, youth, and women.

Emmanuel Development Association has diverse experience in supporting communities to strengthen their food security and livelihoods and increase household income. This is through empowering and equipping community members with knowledge, skills, and technologies in crop production, in a community-led development approach and strategy, strengthening smallholders in agribusiness skills, and value chain, and empowering community savings groups among others. For example, the Emmanuel
Development Association has partnered with the private sector, including financial institutions, to facilitate access to finance (credit services) for groups and private business activities in different sectors, such as the formation of marketing associations and linkages to markets for farmers’ products.