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Family, personal life and outlook Sister Zebider Zewdi parents were from two different tribes and locations in Ethiopia. Now those two tribes are combined under Oromia region. Her mother is from Welega province, which is located in Southern region of Ethiopia; and her father is from Shewa province, which is located in Central region of Ethiopia. After getting married, they moved and lived in Gamu-Gofa province, in Chincha Wereda (District) and started family. When they were living in Chincha Wereda, her mother was nourishing dogs and cats when they had puppies and kittens. This situation was strange for Sister Zebider and her siblings. Zebider remember when she was too young, her siblings would ask their mother why she gave food to dog’s and cat’s as she did to her children? Zebider mother told them, “I keep credit for your future life. When you grow up it will benefit you since you don’t have a family. God is your family.” The place they have been living was a very remote area, and no one had dog or cat as a pet; the dogs and cats in that area were wild animals. This situation changed Sister Zebider’s outlook at young age to be kind and generous to others as her mother does to wild animals. In Chincha Wereda, there is not running water and electricity. They also do not have a grinding machine nearby to grind food. These situations were hard especially for elders and pregnant women. Zebider’s mother took note of that the villager’s elders do not have someone to help them with a daily chore, such as washing their clothes and taking their food to get grind. Zebider mother told her children, to help the village elder and pregnant women’s by taking their cloth to the lake to be washed, and their food to the grinding machine to get grind. Zebider and her siblings did what their mother told them to do and received a blessing from the elders. According Ethiopian culture, when someone helped to those who need help whether that person was asked to help or helped voluntarily, the people who received the help in return automatically blessed the person who helped them. Zebider loves the blessing that she had received form village elders and pregnant women’s after completing the task. From the family upbringing and experience she had at young age, Zebider outlook took a turn when she grew up. She believes if we all help each other, everything would be possible in a society. Her outlook helping hands would empower people, eradicate poverty, bring justice when living together with collective responsibility and respect for diversities. With this outlook she has, she started to help others using her nursing carrier. At Age 28, Zebider opened a clinic in area called Asco. Asco is 10 miles away from the capital city Addis Ababa. At that time, Asco area was a remote area which is very difficult especially for pregnant women when they needed help at the time of birth. Before Sister Zebider opened the clinic, the area does not have health center or clinic. Duet to the area being remote it was very difficult to get transpiration for residents to closest clinic or hospital to access health care. The people who lived in that area had suffered a lot before her clinic was opened. As she recalls, three pregnant women lost their life in one week before they received the help they need. This situation moved Sister Zebider Zewdi to open her first clinic and called it, Asco Gabriel Clinic. Besides above circumstances, a call from the residents in that area, the low-cost rent offer she has been granted form the Asco administration, the encouragement she has received from others to open the clinic, and most importantly her mother influence caring for others at an early age appeal to her decision to open the clinic. Right after she opened the clinic, she started serving the community without any charge. This is due to the community in that area were desperate and can’t afford to pay the cost of the service they received. Her outlook in helping others took over beyond opening one clinic in Asco. She established a foundation called, “May Joy Foundation” to help more citizens using different programs and objectives to eradicate poverty and hardship. Unfortunately, after some time she opened the clinic, Sister Zebider became sick with a tumor inside her nose. She had suffered physical distress due to the tumor, and emotional distress since she was not able to serve the people who would come to the clinic for treatment. At the time she was sick, there was no chemotherapy and advanced medication to cure her illness. Luckily, Sister Zebider had a chance to get medicine from Norway. Even though she took 17 medication per day, the medications do not seem to help to cure the cancer. She came under a life-threatening health situation, and unable to provide the service she intended to provide to the Asco community. Religion Sister Zebider was raised as Orthodox in the Christianity denomination. Her Christian teaching helped her believe in God, Holy-Virgin St. Mary, her son Jesus Christ, and to do moral duties according the gospel. When she realized her health was deteriorating, and the medications she took were unsuccessful, she turns to her religion for cure. She started praying for miracle. In her prayer to Holy-Virgin, St. Mary asked, to grant her a cure so that she would continue to help others and be a witness to others who do not believe in her son Jesus Christ. After her prayer, she drinks the holy-water from St. Mary church and she recovered from her intense pain due to the tumor. After Sister Zebider recovered from her illness, she changed the name of her foundation from Asco-Gebriel Clinic to Mary Joy. According Sister Zebider, “Mary” stands for Holy-Virgin Mary, herself and the word “Joy” is for the gratified she received from her mercy.”  The Mary-Joy charitable foundation was founded with few hundred children then it expanded to help more people as the number of vulnerable people demand increased. The foundation is based on no discrimination on religion, race, politics and ethnicity. She has been working the past 26 years since the foundation was established. Legacy The legacy of Sister Zebider came from her mother. As a young child, the lesson she learned from her mother and the small tasks she provided to women and elders in Chencha, Gamu-Gofa province still resonate in her life. Sister Zebider has been reflected her mother’s legacy in her foundation by lending hands, advocating for change, and by empowering the vulnerable people. Sister Zebider believed working hand in hand with stakeholders would help to eradicate poverty, lead individuals to be self-sufficient than being destitute. She doesn’t believe handing out money to individuals, because she believes handing out money doesn’t have turnover. Instead she prefers different routes such as teaching, empowering, and work with them to achieve personal goal and being productive. She also wants them, if they can, to pay back to the community. Sister Zebider legacy dramatically improved the life of countless people who received the service directly or indirectly from the foundation. Her foundation objective and service has been a good role model to a new generation as her mother and Mother Theresa does to her. Her service teaches the young generation to be open mind, work together and help each other. She helps them to get out of poverty and become a productive society.

Later more and more people came to get help from her foundation. With the amount of budget, she has it become difficult to serve all. Then she started receiving donations from citizens and international organizations. The following private sectors donors make a difference to the foundations she established: Plan International, USAID, CORDAID, Save the Children Norway, Save the Children Denmark, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Help Age International, UNICEF, UNDP, UNV, UNFPA and World Learning. The donation she received helped Sister Zebider humanitarian work to expand to 115 Weredas in 10 cities. It also allowed her to opened daycare for children and elders which helps 36,000 children and 5,000 elders regardless of their age, gender and ethnicity. Her legacy echoes on the central principle of a social worker, meaning that, it protects human rights, collective responsibility, and respect for diversities. The foundation attends to provide guidelines and best practices in public service. By joint effort, the foundation providins attainable service to the vulnerable community in which it succeeded to achieves outstanding result. Views on Sister Zebider has views on empowerment and education to self-fulfillment through joined development programs. Her main focus is on capital building by encouraging individuals with genuine participation using different objectives that meet their needs. The views she has helps vulnerable citizens to overcome poverty, health issues, being destitute and lonely. Sister Zebider continuously work to eradicate childhood poverty regardless of age, sex, religion, political affiliation, and ethnicity of the individual. There are so many children in Ethiopia who lost their parents due to illness, war and poverty. Sister Zebider’s foundation implemented a project called Kokeb (in Amharic, Kokeb means Star) that helps 22,000 orphan children out of 36,000 children the foundation help. The objective of the project is to produce human capital before children are being served inside the orphanage. The rest of the children gets help from outside while living with single parent or relatives. Her foundation strives to make the future children to be self-reliant economically. Sister Zebider said, “Children are the future generation who is going took over the country.”  Therefore, she believes the previous generations have to provide the necessary tool for the next generation instead them to struggle their own. Sister Zebider also continuously works on health issues regardless of age, sex, religion, political affiliation and ethnicity. As a nurse herself, one of her tasks is educating people about health. This includes education on HIV/AIDS illness, cervical cancer. The foundation she established provides screening of a cervical cancer at the clinic level. In practice women has to go to hospital to get screened for cervical cancer. When the cancer is eminent, the women are referred to different hospitals for further treatment. Some of the Hospitals who care for this type of illness are: Tikur Anbessa General Hospital, St. Paul Hospital, and Ras Desta Damitew Hospital. These Hospitals are found in Addis Ababa City, Shewa. Sister Zebider facilitated with some hospitals to use coupon to get service for low income people. The coupon is established by the hospital for those who cannot afford to pay for the service they received. It is a big humanitarian effort she did in this case since the low-income women cannot afford to the hospital. The other health objective of Sister Zebider is, to bring attitude change towards women who have cervical cancer. In the past people who were living with HIV/AIDS were neglected by the society due stigma to the illness. Sister Zebider lately found out more women have cervical cancer than ever before. These women are stigmatized by the community. This circumstance makes some women afraid to go to hospital for treatment due to negativity in the community. Sister Zebider foundation is making a big effort to end the negative attitude towards women with cervical cancer. The foundation advocate and teaching the community about the cervical cancer. This effort helps to reduce the sickness and death of women from the illness. Her foundation also built five health centers in Addis Ababa city, and added two health service center and a clinic to help women in Hawassa city, in Sedamo Province. Sister Zebider also working to raise awareness of the family planning conjunctions with Planned Parenthood Federation, Africa (PPFA) to reduce unwanted pregnancy. Besides Sister Zebider empowering children and youth to be self-sufficient; she also empowers women to be successful and dependent. She believes empowering women is as building integral part of a family structure. Sister Zebider believes if women become self-sufficient, the women can raise their children without socio-economic difficulties. That way the family is secured socioeconomically in return reduce poverty. Sister Zebider admires Mother Teresa’s outlook in race, politics and ethnicity. She established Mary Joy foundation base on Mother Theresa’s outlook where it does not discriminate people based on race, ethnicity and political affiliation. Awards and honors Sister Zebider Zewdi, is one of the significant persons in Ethiopia. She contributed outstanding performance by empowering children, youth, women and the elderly since 1994. Through joined development programs, she serves these vulnerable groups. She provides service in conjunction with macro and micro level philanthropist, and volunteers in the community. She still provides her outstanding serves without discriminating age, sex, political affiliation and ethnicity. Sister Zebider has received awards for her outstanding accomplishment in community leadership, effort to alleviate poverty, environment protection, for providing help and guidance about AIDS, and empowerment of vulnerable community to make them self-sufficient. The awards are: - 1.	Red-Ribbon Award in recognition of outstanding community leadership and Action on AIDS at the 16th World AIDS Day Conference in August 2006 – Toronto, Canada. 2.	For poverty alleviation and environmental protection efforts on the occasion of the World Environment Day in year 2001. 3.	For outstanding contribution in alleviation of poverty and creating public awareness on HIV&AIDS. The award was provided at the first national Conference on “Building a culture of peace: - Character, Family and Public Service” - in December 2000 – Ethiopia. 4.	The foundation also received award for the past ten years of recognition of children needs and the support the foundation provided. Cite Maryjoy-ethiopia.org{dashboard.wikiedu.org san