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The Foster Mother
We have lost our dear friend, Mrs. Haregewoin Teferra. She died suddenly on March 17, 2009. We do not have a diagnosis. It is possible there were chronic undiagnosed heart, liver, or other conditions. What we can say for certain is that she always gave little thought to her own comfort or help--she lived in great simplicity and humility--while caring for hundreds of vulnerable children across the past decade.
At the time of her death, Haregewoin operated one foster home for HIV-negative children. Those children still live at Atetegeb Worku, under the care of a devoted board, caregivers, and Temesgen Afeta, Program Coordinator. Haregewoin's surviving daughter, Sosina Worku, will step into her mother's shoes as Executive Director, effective immediately.
(The 42 HIV-positive children formerly at "Little Atetegeb" moved last month to the full-time care of World Wide Orphans, a school and clinic which already provided health care, nutritional oversight, and education to these medically complex children. Visit www.wwo.org for more information on those kids.)
In short, there has been no break in the loving care and medical attention available to Haregewoin's children.
Atetegeb needs assistance to push forward in realizing Haregewoin's dreams. I will post information here on how to contribute to Atetegeb as soon as that is available.
Everyone touched by Haregewoin -- either personally or through her work or through my book -- is in mourning.
Haregewoin's Life
Haregewoin Teferra was happily married to Worku Kebede, a biology teacher and high school principal. She worked in the accounting office of Addis Ababa University and of Burroughs Computer Corporation. The middle-class couple lived in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, and doted upon their daughters, Atetegeb, born in 1967, and Suzie, born in 1969. Then a pair of tragedies altered Haregewoin’s life. In 1990, at the age of 54, Worku collapsed and died from a heart attack. Bereft, Haregewoin raised her daughters alone. Atetegeb married, had a baby boy, then fell ill. Her sickness seemed untreatable. Haregewoin spent eight months at her daughter’s side, seeking every cure, consulting every clinic and physician, until, at the age of 24, Atetegeb died.
Haregewoin felt as if her life were over. She spent all day every day draped in black, seated beside her daughter’s grave. A year passed in this way. She felt unable to return to work, unable to accept visits from her friends. “But my daughter,” she protested when they sought her out. “I liked her very much.”
She typed out a line from a song she remembered – “There is no me without you” – and placed it over an old photograph of teenage Atetegeb and Suzie laughing together. After 18 months of profound mourning, Haregewoin asked the Ethiopian Orthodox Church to take her into seclusion. She would leave the world, she would inhabit a hut in the cemetery near her daughter’s grave.
Instead, a Catholic organization approached Waizero [Mrs.] Haregewoin and asked her to shelter a homeless teenage girl. “My life is over,” she replied. “It doesn’t matter what I do. If you think God wants me to take her, then I will take her.” Two weeks later, the Catholic group phoned again to ask if she could shelter a homeless 17-year-old boy. Again she replied, “My life is over,” and she took the boy. Two weeks later, the agency phoned again, this time with two orphaned little girls. They’d lost their parents to AIDS; no one, in that moment of the dawning pandemic, wanted to risk contacting the disease by sheltering the children. But Haregewoin, who felt her life had ended anyway, accepted them into her compound, into her heart.
All that occurred roughly 400 children ago.
Today Haregewoin's daughter Sosina Worku, and a dedicated staff, continue to care for orphaned and vulnerable children at the Atetegeb Worku Memorial Orphans Support Association, a loving foster home in Addis Ababa.
