Help Tebita Ambulance save lives in Ethiopia!

Help save the first private ambulance dispatch centre and paramedic college in Ethiopia!

Thousands of Ethiopians from poor socio-economic backgrounds depend on the affordable emergency service Tebita Ambulance provide. Help us save and expand the medical service by sponsoring the building of Tebita Ambulance’s own dispatch centre and medical facility. Tebita urgently need more funds to combat the extreme inflation in the country.

For Ethiopians who want to support Tebita directly you can do so by transferring money to:

Tebita Ambulance pre hospital emergency medical service Plc

CBE

Misrake Delle Branch

1000248782602

or

Enat Bank S.C, Etege Tayitu Branch, account number: 0011105416517001, Tebita Ambulance Pre-Hospital Emergency Medical Service.

Kibret Abebe, a celebrated figure in the health care sector in Ethiopia, has for the last 15 years worked tirelessly to establish a quality emergency service in his country. Working as an anaesthetic nurse in a hospital he often saw patients die from injuries that would have been treatable if they had been picked up by an ambulance and taken care of by a first responder. Both emergency service infrastructure and trained professionals was almost non existing in the country.

“It was painful to see a lot of patients who came to the hospital dying even if they received medical attention,” he recalls of his time working at the hospital. “At that time I noticed that the time element is very crucial in many critical cases and I continuously asked myself ‘should we have to wait for the cases to come to us, or should we act?’”

He decided to act. At great personal risk he sold his own house and purchased and equipped professional ambulances, establishing Tebita Ambulance in 2009. With partners he expanded his ambulance service, started providing first aid training, opened a small first aid kit manufacturing business, and established Ethiopia’s first paramedic college. He has received multiple national and international awards for his work. Tebita Ambulance is now the leading private provider of emergency medical services and pre-hospital care in Ethiopia, and it has provided ambulance services to more than 100,000 patients – many of these patients come from low-income backgrounds.

So far Tebita college has graduated almost 70 Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT) and 52 new students have just started their education – most of them are women. First responders, especially those working in ambulances, like paramedics, have a significant impact in reducing trauma mortality. In a country such as Ethiopia who has some of the highest traffic accident mortality rates in the world, paramedics and EMTs are the difference between life and death. There is an acute lack of EMTs and paramedics in the country and Tebita College are well on their way to address this issue. The education is free for the students as many of the are from low income groups.

Rent prices have increased dramatically and Kibret realised that to make Tebita College financially stable and make Tebita Ambulance able to provide affordable healthcare to all sections of society, Tebita needs its own building. He used his own assets as collateral and started building an eight-story building. All Tabita’s operations will be housed there. In addition, Kibret wish to establish an entrepreneurial hub for young people who wish to dream big and make a change in society just like himself.

“The name ‘Tebita’ (which means ‘a drop’ in Amharic), emphasises the message that no matter how small the contribution, it still saves lives.”

Together with trusted partners he has already invested 17 million Birr in the building and the ground floor is ready. Due to extreme inflation in the country (40% over the last three years) the process of finishing the building is challenging. To continue the building process, combat inflation and make Tebita more financially sustainable, we wish to raise 10 million Birr, the equivalent of around 2 000 000 NOK, as soon as possible. The funds will be collected by Partnership for Change, a Norwegian NGO, and they will transfer directly to Tebita Ambulance.

Thank you for your donation! With your support Kibret and his Tebita ambulance team can save countless lives and drastically improve the health care service in Ethiopia. If you want to support Kibret and Tebita Ambulance further, you can contact Tebita’s long term partner “Partnership for Change” at https://pfchange.org