The School of St. Yared

At The School of St. Yared, the mission is to provide education to talented, impoverished children from the poorest suburbs of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

World Youth Horizons supports this work of giving children in Addis Ababa a path to education and a brighter future.

From the Streets to the Schoolhouse: The Story of Yared Wolde

Yared Wolde understands what it means for a child to feel forgotten.

He was only six years old when his father was drafted into the Ethiopian army during the war with Eritrea and killed. Soon afterward, tuberculosis took the lives of his mother and siblings. Fearful of the disease, members of his community turned him away.

In a short time, Yared lost his family, his home and nearly every source of security a child should have.

Alone on the streets of Addis Ababa, he survived by working small jobs in the city markets. At night, he slept wherever he could find shelter, sometimes in a drain or a large roadside pipe. He searched through discarded food at the market when he was hungry.

Yet even in those desperate circumstances, Yared held tightly to something his mother had taught him: education mattered.

He used the little money he earned to pay for school. He understood, even as a child, that education might be the only path leading him out of poverty.

After approximately three years on the streets, Yared eventually found his way into a series of orphanages. At around nine years old, he met Jacqui Gilmour, an Australian humanitarian who had spent years working with Ethiopian communities through famine relief, HIV/AIDS programs and other initiatives supporting vulnerable children.

Their meeting became the beginning of a lifelong friendship.

As Yared grew older, Jacqui watched him develop into a compassionate and determined young man. He began working with Hope for Children, serving as an interpreter during conversations with families living in some of Addis Ababa’s most impoverished communities.

Yared was not simply translating their words. He understood their lives.

When parents described the pain of being unable to feed their children, Yared understood. When children spoke about losing their families or being denied an education because of poverty, he understood. He had once been one of those children.

Yared and Jacqui began asking an important question:

What might be possible if Ethiopia’s poorest children were given the opportunity to recognize their own value and potential?

They shared a vision of creating an exceptional school for children living in extreme poverty, not a school that offered them the bare minimum, but one that gave them the same quality of education normally reserved for children from wealthy families.

In 2009, when Yared was approximately 22 years old, they co-founded The School of St. Yared.

They leased a compound in Addis Ababa, and Yared spent three months transforming it into a school. He created classrooms, built furniture and worked to make the property safe and welcoming for its first students.

The school opened with 44 children selected from some of the city’s poorest and most marginalized families. Only five initially had sponsors. Yared and Jacqui helped fund the education of the others themselves.

They named the school after Saint Yared, the celebrated Ethiopian scholar and musician who was orphaned as a child but overcame hardship through education, discipline and determination.

It was a fitting name for a school founded by a man whose own life carried a similar message.

The School of St. Yared was created to provide talented and determined children with a completely free, high-quality bilingual education. Students receive their uniforms, books and educational materials, along with nutritious meals and opportunities to participate in sports and other activities.

As the school grew, World Youth Horizons partnered with Yared and The School of St. Yared to help secure its future. World Youth Horizons fully funded the construction of a new school building, giving the children a permanent, safe and welcoming place to learn and grow. Our commitment did not end when the building was completed. World Youth Horizons continues to support the school, helping Yared and his team provide children with the education, care and opportunities they need to build lives beyond poverty.

But Yared knew that educating a child required more than putting that child in a classroom.

As the school’s director, he became deeply involved in the lives of its students and their families. He visited their homes, monitored their health and well-being, and spoke with parents about hygiene, nutrition, family planning and the challenges they faced.

His goal was not simply to change a child’s grades. It was to help transform the future of an entire family.

The results have been extraordinary. Students from The School of St. Yared have often performed as well as, or better than, students attending expensive private schools. They have excelled academically, succeeded in sports and used what they learned to improve the lives of their families and communities.

The children Yared once saw being dismissed as having little value began proving what they could accomplish when someone believed in them.

Yared’s childhood could have convinced him that the world was cruel and that every person had to survive alone. Instead, it created within him a profound determination to make sure other children would not have to face the future without hope.

He took the pain of losing his own family and used it to build a school community where hundreds of children could feel that they belonged.

He took the education he fought so hard to receive and turned it into an opportunity for others.

He took the place where his story could have ended and made it the beginning of something much greater.

Today, The School of St. Yared stands as a powerful reminder that poverty does not determine a child’s intelligence, value or potential. It demonstrates what becomes possible when vulnerable children are given excellent teachers, nourishing food, a safe community and someone who refuses to stop believing in them.

World Youth Horizons is proud to stand beside Yared and help ensure that the school he dreamed of continues opening doors for children who might otherwise be denied an education.

Yared Wolde was once a little boy reading and dreaming beneath the streetlights of Addis Ababa.

Now, through the school he founded, he is lighting the way for generations of children to follow.