Daily Archives: August 18, 2012

The 40 Hour Famine

Meet Burtukan. She is a small, unassuming girl, perhaps the same age as some of your children, 7 years old. But instead of learning how to read and write, playing sports with other kids, she is cleaning her dry little hut while her mother works from dawn till dusk to make 80c a day.

While other parents plan birthday parties and outings to the zoo with their kids, Burtukan’s mother plans on how she will feed her family of four more than one piece of flatbread a day, meagre and unfulfilling to the pangs of hunger.

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Click On Image For Source

What does a 7 year old dream about? Going to the moon, riding unicorns, meeting Buzz Lightyear. They don’t have to grow up fast, they don’t have any worries. The food comes to their table at least 3 times a day, their parents work. Such a simple concept.
Burtukan is growing up fast, helping her family out while forgetting childhood and dreaming of Cafe Share which she runs on a daily basis, serving sips of water in bottle tops and leaves as biscuits to her fellow neighbours with the Ethiopian sun beating down on their backs.

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