Activities:

On September 6, Dir Biyabir participated in the Ethiopian New Year Celebration in San Jose, CA. This was our first broad community outreach and the goal was to publicize the organization's mission, and recruit new members. There was a Dir Biyabir booth with a large banner, and team members were on hand to explain our mission and review project progress. Dir Biyabir T-shirts were provided for a minimum donation of $15. There was significant interest and enthusiasm from the community, and 12 new members have joined Dir Biyabir as a result of this event.

The Dana Street Roasting Company in Mountain View, California has been serving as the default head quarters of Dir Biyabir for over 2 years. A significant chunk of Dir Biyabir work has been done from this cafe, including the development of the Christensen fund grant application (which we happily won). On finding out about our group, the owner of the cafe Nick Chaput expressed his desire to help. Nick had the very creative idea of roasting an "Obama Blend" on coffee to commemorate President Obama's 100th day in office. This coffee was to be a blend of Kenyan, Hawaiian, and Indonesian coffee. On May 29 2009, this delicious blend went on sale at Dana Cafe for $16 per pound. Nick committed to donating a very generous $10 per pound to Dir Biyabir. The coffee sold out and Nick donated $600 to Dir Biyabir. Thank you Nick for the generous support. If any of you are in the Bay Area of California we encourage you to stop by this wonderful cafe where they roast their coffee on site:

Dana Street Roasting Company
744 W. Dana Street
Mountain View, CA
94041

In January 2009, Dir Biyabir member Bibi Ephraim, who had gone to Ethiopia to visit family, took a special trip to the Northern Shewa region of Ethiopia to visit the ADHENO projects sponsored by Dir Biyabir. He was accompanied by ADHENO staff who gave him a tour of the projects. Bibi wrote a very informative site-visit report which you can download from the Reports section.

On October 9 2008, The Christensen Fund, a Palo Alto based private foundation focusing on conserving cultural and biological diversity, awarded Dir Biyabir a grant of $24,500 to fund a youth based environmental conservation project in Northern Shewa to be executed by ADHENO. This is the first major grant won by Dir Biyabir and generated a lot of excitement within our group. We thank the Christensen Fund for their confidence in our organization and our vision, we also thank all our members for their support.

In August 2008 Dir Biyabir received a request for emergency assistance from ADHENO as famine had affected some populations in the project area in Northern Shewa. The local administration of Bassona Worana Woreda had come to ADHENO for assistance as they were unable to secure funds anywhere. Dir Biyabir was able to raise $4,000 USD in 2 weeks from members and supporters. The funds were wired on September 17 2008. Though neither Dir Biyabir nor ADHENO are focused on short-term emergency assistance this was a situation that could not be ignored. We thank everyone who contributed for their quick response.

In June 2008, the Chairperson, Haeran Fisseha, visited project sites including the Workegur Primary School, and Gudifecha of Trees at Workegur and Metkoria. She also met and spoke with Women and Youth groups and discussed their business proposals

The chairperson of DirBiyabir, Haeran Fisseha had a slideshow presentation for a group of friends at her home in March 2008. Everyone was very enthusiastic and several new members have joined Dir Biyabir since then. More slideshow events have been planned. We welcome them all in this worthy and fun endeavor! You can view the slide show here.

In October 2007 Dir Biyabir won a grant from the eBay Foundation for $2,500 to support grass-roots development activities in Northern Shewa. This was the first grant won by Dir Biyabir and generated a lot of enthusiasm in the team. We thank The eBay Foundation for supporting our mission.

The Secretary, Bibi Ephraim, visited the project site between January 29 and 30, 2007, and met with the ADHENO leadership as well as members of the Goshebado Tsigereda Wetatoch Mahiber youth group. This was a fruitful visit in which Bibi saw the progress being made and discussed fully the needs of both ADHENO and the youth group, and discussed planned projects. Please see Reports section for more details of Bibi's visit.