page_title: Student Initiative Rahel
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Student Initiative Rahel / History
caption_attribution_description: Ethiopia
context_page_description: The Student Initiative Rahel is a project of the Institute for World Church and Mission which is a part of the Sankt Georgen Graduate School of Philosophy and Theology in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen. The nonprofit organization supports in a scholarship youths - mostly young women - in Adigrat in the north Of Ethiopia, who are disadvantaged for various reasons, and accompanies them financially and ideally during their studies at a university or their education. The project is funded mainly by current and former students at the university. It is largely funded by donations.
context_section_description: The idea for the educational project was developed in 2010 during a research trip on the subject of AIDS by the then head of the IWM, Albert-Peter Rethmann. It was in the context of a research project of the German Bishops' Conference (German: Deutsche Bischofskonferenz) in Adigrat in Tigray Region in northern Ethiopia. In this region, many young people have no access to higher education due to lack of family support, many are AIDS orphans. Young women are particularly affected by this situation through discrimination. An initiative of the Adigrat Diocesan Catholic Secretariat (ADCS) of the Ethiopian Catholic Eparchy of Adigrat has already supported ten young people with micro-scholarships for obtaining a university entrance qualification and at least one bachelor's degree in their own country. One of the sponsored students was the AIDS orphan Rahel Hailay. The result of the journey resulting from the trip was an international initiative of students for students in the age of globalization as an overall project.
  In November 2017, the project was announced to be phasing out. In a farewell letter to the donors, the Rahel team wrote that it expected its work to be gradually taken over by the Adigrat Diocesan Catholic Secretariat (ADCS) and former graduates in Ethiopia. The Rahel team conveyed the same message on Facebook in January 2018, clarifying that it would not accept any further donations.
caption: Street scene in Adigrat, 2014
exif: {"Image Copyright": ""}