Empowering African Nations Since 1981

"Connections Lead to Partnership and Greater Impacts"
Dr. Alice K. Johnson Butterfield, a professor at the Jane Addams School of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, writes about IFESH's instrumental role in bringing social work education to Ethiopia in The New Humanitarians, a book published in 2008. "Our story is about the power of one person connecting with another to develop new programs to meet human needs, establish international partnerships in higher education, and bring about social change."

Butterfield's journey began when she was invited to Ethiopia in 2001. Through research, she learned that social work education did exist at one time; however the Communist government abolished it in 1974 because they claimed that social problems did not exist in Ethiopia.

Through a series of consultations with Ethiopian professionals and education leaders, Butterfield and the local counterparts saw that social work could play an important role in reducing poverty in Ethiopia and Butterfield urgently sought funding to create a social work graduate program at Addis Ababa University. The project was entitled the Social Work Education in Ethiopia Partnership (SWEEP) and initially involved the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Addis Ababa University, and several other international partners.

SWEEP defined social work to include the areas of community health, orphans and vulnerable children, refugee resettlement, and poverty reduction. Butterfield and her colleagues set up new programs that were strategic, dynamic and innovative, while using the most effective educational methodologies.

Because of a severe lack of financial and other resources for implementation, Butterfield then established a partnership with IFESH, which had been operating in Ethiopia since 1994. "We are very proud to have participated in the process of establishing Ethiopia's first master's level program in Social Work, and we applaud Dr. Johnson Butterfield's level of commitment," said Dr. Julie H. Sullivan, IFESH President and CEO.

This project launched Ethiopia's first-ever Masters in Social Work program in 2004, and then a Ph.D. in Social Work and Social Development in 2006. Since 2004, IFESH has been part of the SWEEP project at Addis Ababa University while assigning volunteer educators, Dr. Jim Rollin, Dr. Deborah Zinn and currently Dr. John Messer.