A story about development cooperation

Four weeks ago, my wife Sofie and I met Roza and her daughter Mesgana. They came over to offer an Ethiopian coffee ceremony for our daughter Edil, who we adopted from Ethiopia one year ago.

Since that moment on, Sofie and I engaged in an adventurous story called Misgana. This organisation is based in Belgium as a non-profit organisation and in Ethiopia als a NGO. The focus lays on providing basic needs to children in the Jimma and Mayechew region, Ethiopia. By offering health and medical care, education, shelter and food, we try to achieve a rise of the quality of life of those children. With great respect for the social contexts of the children, the resources collected here are spent in the best way possible in the region there.

Since six years, a lot of work had been done by Roza and other volunteers who came by to help out. But at this point, there was an urgent need of fresh engagement because all the work began to rest upon Roza’s shoulders. That caused too much pressure to bear for one person.

For that reason, with a clear view it was obvious that the most urgent things to do were injecting the website with fresh input and mainly rebuilding it in a basic way, creating a facebook page and starting promoting the name and organisation Misgana.

November 5th 2014, after four weeks of cooperation and regular internal meetings with Roza and the other board members, we were invited by VLIR-UOS to provide a genuine coffee ceremony. We are very grateful for this occasion. There were a lot of honoured guests present such as Alexander Decroo, Belgian vice prime-minister and minister of development cooperation; Dr. Kaba Urgessa, Ethiopian state minister of education; professors and students of the universities of Jimma and Ghent.

The story that was told during this event by the different speakers was based upon the actual practice and synergies of both the universities of Jimma and Ghent and the stories of the past decade. Inter-universitary cooperation with the purpose of uplifting development in both countries already got strong and is still growing.

The minister of development cooperation Decroo stated: “I am convinced!”, at the end of the series of speeches, which shows that after only one week in charge of development cooperation, he witnessed a genuine drive based upon years of good and trustful work.

After a few words about Misgana organisation and the meaning and background of a coffee ceremony, we started offering the coffee to the honoured guests. Pictures were taken, there was a lot of interesting networking and we talked to a lot of students, ministers, professors. The atmosphere felt very friendly, committed and engaged. The people who were present enjoyed each others company and new opportunities were sought and initiated.

My knowledge of development cooperation on a larger scale, e.g. how it actually is as well as from a historically perspective, is very limited. The story simply started as an interaction between people who wanted to cultivate a certain chemistry between them for a good cause.

The crazy thing about this is that it all came to existence in an organic manner. Now that my interest in development cooperation is awakened, I’m eager to get to know more about the possibilities to help the children of Jimma and Mayechew. There is lots of work on a micro scale (hands-on, making things happen here and on the field in Jimma/Mayechew) as well as on a bigger scale (meta perspective, learning more about the dynamics between countries and mechanisms which enable development cooperation to work).

For that reason I’m very curious where this story is going to lead me together with my wife and family, Roza and her family and of course Misgana as a non-profit organisation.

More information about Misgana can be found on www.misgana.be. Questions and suggestions can be sent by e-mail (info@misgana.be).

More info about the event can be read on www.vliruos.be.

The opening speech of minister of development cooperation Alexander Decroo can be read here.

Koen Van Damme