Dear ,

I hope you are well. I am emailing to let you know that, after six years of close collaboration, Link Ethiopia has chosen to merge with our sister charity The Kindu Trust!

Historically, Link Ethiopia and The Kindu Trust and have both worked to help children stay in education; The Kindu Trust working with families and Link Ethiopia working with schools. We believe that both our approaches are vital to supporting children in Ethiopia and that together we can be more effective and have a greater impact.

Our projects to increase access to education through the construction of facilities for schools and to improve the quality of education through teacher training will continue. Our child sponsorship programme will also be an important part of our shared work, and the staff involved in the programmes will remain the same.

As a merged organisation, our work will expand to areas that The Kindu Trust works on: after-school and pre-school support for children and projects supporting girls’ education, which we have already been working on together.

Many of you will already be aware of The Kindu Trust as we have been collaborating for over a decade.

• In 2008 we moved into a shared office in London to enable mutual support and cost efficiency;
• In 2016 we did the same in Gondar, sharing an office with both teams in the centre of town;
• In 2016 our UK trustees became the same for both organisations;
• In 2018, having led The Kindu Trust UK for three years, I also became Chief Executive of Link Ethiopia.

Since those early steps, the benefits of working together, sharing our learning, and pooling our resources has become clearer and clearer. I am very excited to be at this stage where we begin working together in all respects, saving costs through shared resources, and benefitting from each other’s knowledge and experience.

Together, we really are better, and by merging we will be able to support Ethiopian children more effectively – helping more children reach their potential.

Marta Bekele, The Kindu Trust's Manager (left) with Caroline Walker (centre) and Elsa Kebede, Country Director of Link Ethiopia (right).

It was important to both of us that the joining of our organisations be on equal footing. Therefore, we have decided to join under a new name. I will be in touch again at the end of this month to announce the new name, and how you can follow us online.

We have listed some FAQs regarding the merge which you can read here, and you can also get in touch with any questions at my usual address – caroline@linkethiopia.org.

There is nothing you need to do because of the merge for now. I will be in touch with you next week with more information!

We thank you for your continued support.

Best wishes,

Caroline Walker
Chief Executive