The Big Give 2025

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This year’s Big Give Christmas campaign is now live!

We are hoping to raise £10,200 to pay the salaries of 3 nurses at Hospice Ethiopia throughout 2026.

With your help we can reach our target. All donations large or small will be matched and will make a difference to supporting people who are approaching the end of life in Ethiopia. Many live in extreme poverty and without the care from Hospice Ethiopia’s nurses, may not have any help at all and suffer greatly.

If you are thinking of making a donation to support Hospice Ethiopia’s work, this is the week to do it. All donations made through the Big Give website will be doubled until noon on Tuesday 9th December.

One donation, twice the impact!

Please donate through Hospice Ethiopia UK’s Big Give page

Listen to Nurse Tsegay talk about working for Hospice Ethiopia. Last year’s Big Give appeal funded her and Rahel, a social worker to be trained in palliative care and work at Hospice Ethiopia:

The Big Give 2024

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Thank you, thank you, thank you! We asked you to help us reach our target of £11,500 in the annual Big Give Christmas Challenge and we exceeded it! With 63 donations, £5,956 was given which means with our matching pot and Gift Aid an amazing £12,655 has been raised. This will enable Hospice Ethiopia to fund an additional nurse and a new Social Worker in 2025, thereby increasing their capacity to care for people approaching the end of their lives. Ephrem, the Director of Hospice Ethiopia said “Wow wow wow…congratulations! Thank you so much and thank you all the donors!”

The Big Give Christmas Challenge 2023 – target reached!

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We are so grateful to all who donated during the ‘Big Give Christmas Challenge 2023’. We asked you to help us reach our biggest target ever – with 41 donations, £5,880 was given which means with our matching pot and Gift Aid an amazing £13,492 has been raised. Giving a 30% pay rise to the staff of Hospice Ethiopia will make a substantial difference for them. They are highly trained in providing excellent palliative care in a challenging setting and need to be rewarded for this. Hospice Ethiopia cannot afford to lose such staff and this will enable them to provide a living wage for their skilled workforce.

“I am very pleased for the salary increase. It is really helpful for my financial hardship and motivates me to work harder. I am grateful for the leaders behind this good intention”. Gullilat, Hospice Ethiopia Finance Officer.

The Big Give 2023 ends soon!

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We are really delighted with the response so far to our Big Give project 2023 – the donation window is ending soon at midday on Tuesday 5th December. If you haven’t had a chance to donate yet, don’t worry – there are still match funds available so every pound you donate will mean £2 for Hospice Ethiopia. We have raised a fantastic £7,710 so far; please help us reach our target of £11,760 to enable the hard-working staff in Ethiopia to get a pay rise.

Please visit the Big Give website here to donate.

Your donation will enable people like Mariam (not her real name; see photo) to have ongoing visits from Hospice Ethiopia’s nurses to help her cope with her depression and anxiety. She is aged 35 and was diagnosed with bowel cancer in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where she was a migrant worker. She paid for surgery to remove the cancer and a colostomy was formed. The UAE government does not provide free health care to migrant workers so she returned to Addis Ababa and has had 10 cycles of chemotherapy at the Tikur Anbessa hospital. Mariam had to buy these drugs from the hospital pharmacy and if they were out of stock she had to go outside the hospital to a pharmacy to try and buy the necessary drugs.

The chemotherapy has caused ongoing diarrhoea which has been extremely problematic to manage especially when she did not have any stoma bags. Fortunately, a new supply of stoma bags was brought to Hospice Ethiopia by the HEUK trustees.

Mariam is effectively destitute and therefore lives with her mother (who also has terminal cancer) in a one-room house along with her infant niece. She is unable to work due to her illness and relies on a monthly grant from the HE Tewolde Medhane Fund (formerly the Comfort Fund) to buy food, medicines and other essential items.

The Big Give 2023

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Dear Supporter,

Many of you have generously made donations in the past that have helped provide care for patients at Hospice Ethiopia. We’re very excited to let you know that Hospice Ethiopia UK has been selected again this year to participate in The Big Give Christmas Challenge 2023, the UK’s largest matched funding campaign.

We will be raising money specifically to enable Hospice Ethiopia’s programme staff to receive a pay rise. For many reasons including the recent civil war, inflation in Ethiopia is approximately 30% resulting in a huge increase in running costs. Hospice Ethiopia has worked hard to support and train a highly skilled workforce. In order to continue to attract and retain staff they need to pay their programme staff a wage that keeps pace with inflation.

One donation, twice the impact.

Donations to this project will be matched for 7 days, from 12pm on Tuesday 28th November 2023. So, every pound you give during that period means two pounds for Hospice Ethiopia.

What do I need to do?

● Add a calendar reminder to your diary for 12 noon on Tuesday 28th November to 12 noon on Tuesday 5th December 2023

● Make your donation via http://www.thebiggive.org.uk – click on the Christmas Challenge and search for Hospice Ethiopia UK

● Alternatively, go directly to the donation page here

Please note the donate button will only appear on the campaign page when the Christmas Challenge launches at 12pm on 28th November.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at info@hospiceethiopia.org.uk

Many thanks in advance for your support,

The Trustees of Hospice Ethiopia UK

The Big Give Christmas Challenge 2022

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One donation, twice the impact

Many of you have generously made donations in the past that have helped provide crucial care for patients. We’re very excited to let you know that Hospice Ethiopia UK has been selected again this year to participate in the Big Give Christmas Challenge 2022, the UK’s largest match funding campaign.
We will be raising money specifically to pay for 2 senior hospice staff to undergo continuing professional development, in order to ensure the future sustainability of Hospice Ethiopia. The accountant, Gullilat Korbu, wishes to undertake a course in leadership and management training and Nurse Filagot Tadele plans to do her Masters in Palliative Care at Hospice Africa Uganda.

We have secured £4000 in matched funding, now we need donations to equal this amount to benefit completely from the matched funding pot. Donations to this project will be matched for 7 days, from 12pm on Tuesday 29th November.  So, every pound donated during that period means two pounds for Hospice Ethiopia. More information will follow on how to donate, closer to the time.

Update on the Big Give 2021

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Very many thanks to all our supporters who donated to this year’s Big Give Christmas challenge. We are delighted that with your generous donations we reached our target of £9,000 and with Gift Aid our final total will be over £10,000. The money will be used to train health care professionals at St Paul’s Hospital Oncology and Emergency Departments where palliative care is desperately needed. 50 key personnel will be trained with follow up mentoring at this large teaching hospital. If this project is successful it will be repeated in other public hospitals thereby improving palliative care across Ethiopia. Thank you so much!

The photograph shows doctors at The Black Lion Hospital being taught clinical skills in palliative care.

The Big Give 2021

alicemumfordLeave a comment

Many of you have generously made donations in the past that have helped provide crucial care for patients. We’re very excited to let you know that Hospice Ethiopia UK has been selected again this year to participate in the Big Give Christmas Challenge 2021, the UK’s largest match funding campaign.

We will be raising money specifically to pay for the development of the palliative care service at one of the largest public hospitals in Ethiopia. The project will target St Paul’s Hospital Oncology and Emergency Departments where palliative care is desperately needed. 50 key personnel will be trained at this large teaching hospital. This follows on from the successful development of an Ethiopian standardised palliative care training course in 2020, developed jointly by HE with the Federal Ministry Of Health (Big Give 2020 project).

If successful it is hoped this project will be repeated in other public hospitals thereby improving palliative care across Ethiopia.

Donations to this project will be matched for 7 days, from 12pm on Tuesday 30th November.  So, every pound donated during that period means two pounds for Hospice Ethiopia.

How do I donate?

If you would like to support our work this year, we highly recommend doing so during the Christmas Challenge when your donation will make even more of a difference to Hospice Ethiopia.


After 12 noon on the 30th November, please visit our page at the biggive.org and follow the instructions. Please note that donations made via other means will not be matched, so it’s really important to go through the ‘big give’ website.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at info@hospiceethiopia.org.uk

Finally, please pass on this message to anyone who you think might be interested in supporting us and having their donation doubled.

update on the big give christmas challenge 2020

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Ephrem teaching palliative care in Ethiopia

Many of our supporters generously donated to our Big Give Project last December. £9,500 was raised to design a standardised palliative care training course that could be delivered across Ethiopia to a range of Health Care Professionals.

We started our project early in January 2021 but nonetheless have not been able to complete the project yet due to the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing difficult political situation in Ethiopia.

Ephrem Abathun (Director of Hospice Ethiopia) has worked with the Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) and other stake holders to design the palliative care course and accompanying course material. This has been formally approved by the FMOH.

The training manual and accompanying material has now been printed. A zoom meeting is planned between Hospice Ethiopia, Hospice Ethiopia UK, and Palliative Care Works to take the project further.

 A pilot course is scheduled to be run in December 2021. Staff from the Simien Mountain Mobile Medical service will attend a 6 day course in Debark. It is hoped 2 trustees from Hospice Ethiopia UK will assist nurses from Hospice Ethiopia in delivering this training.

Following the pilot course, both the trainers and delegates will evaluate the course and adaptions will be  made accordingly, with help from the English charity, Palliative Care Works.

Many thanks again for your generous donations.