1. During President Park Geun-hye’s visit to Ethiopia, Korea Aid was successfully launched in Addis Ababa on May 28, offering services to local residents in Adama, the capital city of the largest Ethiopian province of Oromia, on May 30 and 31.

2. The Korea Aid project was carried out at Adama Science and Technology University (ASTU), where a national of the Republic of Korea is serving as President. At ASTU, medical services were offered during the daytime, and food and cultural services during the nighttime, giving opportunities for local residents to taste not readily accessible Korean food, experience Korean culture and watch Korean movies. The ROK’s Ambassador to Ethiopia Kim Moon-hwan, Mayor of Adama Habtamu and ASTU President Lee Jang-gyu visited the project site and offered encouragement to the medical staff. In addition, they voiced their hope to ASTU students, who were enjoying food and cultural services, that Korea Aid will help the ROK and Ethiopia develop their relations.

3. For the healthcare services offered from 9:00 am till 4:00 pm, a nine-member medical personnel from Ewha Womans University Medical Center and Seoul National University Hospital were dispatched to the project site in Ethiopia, where they were joined by a eight-member medical staff from Ethiopia. They offered some 600 locals, including many pregnant women and girls, medical services, including in pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, and internal medicine.

° Expectant mothers, who received ultrasound services for the first time at the ob/gyn clinic, expressed amazement with the ultrasound video clip of their fetuses as well as happiness over the fetuses’ health. They extended appreciation to the medical staff and the ROK government for the medical services.

° Lelise, a 24-year-old, seven-month pregnant woman from Adulala in the outskirts of Adama, learned from the ultrasound that she was carrying a baby boy.

4. The food and cultural services from 5:00 pm till 7:00 pm were carried out in a Hallyu festival-like mood, with ASTU students comprising the majority of the participants. Some 400 servings of Korea’s signature dishes and Ethiopian food were offered. A cultural video truck was used to screen videos on K-pop and other aspects of Korean culture as well as such popular Korean movies as “International Market” and “The Host.”

° Locals, after tasting Korean food, repeatedly said “Delicious!” in Korean, which they said they had learned by watching Korean soap operas. Expressing interest in the first Korean movies that they had ever watched, they laughed loudly at funny scenes and shed tears at sad scenes of the movie “International Market.”

° In particular, the majority of the ASTU students, who saw the movie “International Market,” mentioned that they learned from the movie that the ROK had struggled a lot to achieve economic growth over a relatively short period of time. They added that they could hope for a better-off Ethiopia if its people work hard.

5. The project under Korea Aid, launched in Addis Ababa on May 28 in the presence of President Park Geun-hye and President Mulatu Teshome of Ethiopia, is seen to have served as an opportunity to put into full gear such projects in Ethiopia.

6. With African Union (AU) headquarters located in the city, Addis Ababa may be regarded as the “capital city of Africa.” In that light, the launch of Korea Aid in the city carries great significance in that it demonstrates the ROK’s commitment to increasing development cooperation in not only Ethiopia but also the rest of Africa. At her special address at the AU on May 27, President Park Geun-hye announced a “blueprint for comprehensive cooperation with Africa,” which includes the ROK’s plan to share with Africa its development experiences.

° Among all the countries in Africa, the ROK government provides its largest volume of grants to Ethiopia, the only African country that dispatched troops to fight alongside the ROK in the Korean War. In that vein, it is expected that Korea Aid, which started in Ethiopia, will be offered beyond Africa to anywhere in the world that needs the ROK’s help.

7. As the healthcare services are one of the main areas of development cooperation in Ethiopia, the mobile healthcare services under Korea Aid are expected to intensify development cooperation in the healthcare sector and to serve as a useful channel for linking healthcare cooperation to that in other fields, such as food and culture.

8. The ROK government plans to conduct in the second half of the year 2016 a Korea Aid project mainly at Jimma University, which the Korea Foundation for International Healthcare (KOHIF) under the Ministry of Health and Welfare has already forged cooperative ties with. Through the project, the ROK will provide vulnerable brackets in Ethiopia with services they need. The project is also expected to play an important role in promoting in Ethiopia Korean culture, which is drawing increasingly keen interest, mostly from youngsters.


* unofficial translation