Inspiring Ethiopian Kids Through Astronomy

Find Your Orbit is an organization that seeks to share the wonders of astronomy with young students. It conducts monthly in-person sessions about astronomy at various schools and frequently posts educational content online.

Recently, Find Your Orbit partnered with Mr. Amha Admassu through Astronomers Without Borders (AWB), a large, international organization that builds and cultivates community through astronomy. Find Your Orbit and Mr. Admassu are both contributing members of AWB. Mr. Admassu is an industrial engineer and amateur astronomer who graduated from Bahir Dar University in Ethiopia. Like Find Your Orbit, he is very passionate about sharing his knowledge with younger kids and inspiring them. Because Ethiopia is a developing country, it is extremely difficult to find educational materials related to astronomy. Seeking to change this, Mr. Admassu started a blog about the universe and made a coloring book about the Solar System, both written in his local language of Amharic. He also designed an Ethiopian calendar for 2016 (Ethiopia uses its own calendar that has 13 months) that shows the dates of 69 astronomical events that can be observed by the naked eye from the Ethiopian night sky. Below are samples of Mr. Admassu's calendar and book.

Mr. Admassu also told us about how happy and fascinated kids are when he shows them amazing objects through his telescope. In his own words, "I always have dreamed of having more telescopes and reaching many kids. You have no idea how happy they were when I showed them the moon. Their look is what is fueling me." He tries to reach as many kids as possible, but because of the difficulties of transporting a telescope, he has to resort to naked-eye astronomy for places he can’t reach with his telescope.

Pictures of one of Mr. Admassu's students, YIhalem Sefinew, looking through his telescope

Through fundraising, Find Your Orbit will buy and ship telescopes to Ethiopia. These telescopes will help bring joy to many more underprivileged kids who don’t have access to such resources. We will also use some of the money to share Mr. Admassu’s educational calendar and book: we have an ambitious goal of distributing these materials to 500 primary schools in Ethiopia for free.

Your donation, no matter how big or small, will directly impact the lives of these kids. Your support can help a child witness the rings of Saturn for the first time or observe the craters of the Moon up close. These experiences have the potential to shape a child's perspective, ignite their curiosity, and instill a lifelong love for learning. Education is the pathway to a bright future. Yet in Ethiopia, only 33.1% of children who enroll in primary school make it to secondary school. Your donation will help fight this educational disparity and provide kids with the tools they need to explore, learn and grow.

Thank you all in advance for your support!

- Find Your Orbit & Amha Admassu