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Dear [NAME],
Shalom from Ethiopia.
My name is Dr. Addisu.
I’m the Chief Medical Officer of SSEJ Pediatric Medical Clinic here in Gondar. And today, I desperately need your help treating, healing, and even saving the lives of the many Jewish families and their children who visit our Clinic.
Gondar is a war-torn city – in some ways not unlike Kharkiv or Kyiv.
We aren’t in a military war where one country attacked another like the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Rather, it’s a civil war the Ethiopian national government and its militia has been waging in and around our poverty-stricken city….and also in other parts of the country…with brute force, guns, and bombs.
Many of the Jewish victims of collateral damage from this conflict in Gondar and the surrounding region turn to the SSEJ Clinic for vitally needed medical care and treatment.
A large number of them are Jewish families whose children are suffering from injury, disease, and malnutrition.
Esther and her entire family live in a one-room mud hut with no bathroom, electricity, or access to clean water—and affording health care for her sick daughter was well beyond the family’s means.
Fortunately, the SSEJ Medical Clinic recently opened. Now, at last, Esther had someone she could go to, someone who could treat Miriam and help her get well … which, under our care, she speedily did.
“I thank God every day for SSEJ and their Pediatric Medical Clinic. I don’t know how we would survive here without them,” says Esther.
Unfortunately, there are many families in Gondar whose deplorable living conditions and extreme poverty make them, like Esther’s, unable to pay for medical care and keep their children healthy.
At our clinic we see 400 patients a month right now … and sadly, because of the ongoing violence, poverty, and hunger in and around Gondar, that number is rapidly growing – soon to reach 600 monthly patients.
Which is why today I am asking for your help in equipping, staffing, and ramping up our clinic to handle this heavier patient load.
At the SSEJ Pediatric Medical Clinic we see all patients, like Esther and her child, promptly. There are no long waits. And never any charges for our services.
Staff doctors and nurses are paid as Clinic employees. But patients and their families never see a bill—ever. Doctor diagnosis, laboratory tests, medical treatment and nursing care–all are free to our patients. As are the many medications available in our newly built pharmacy.
Well, as you can imagine, in a poor nation like Ethiopia, medical treatment is often just unaffordable, especially to those who need it most. And now your donation will help us pay for the cost of the treatment—so our Ethiopian Jews and their families don’t have to.
Prior to the SSEJ Medical Clinic, the suffering of Jewish children in Gondar was more terrible than most people I know can conjure. Your donation, in any amount, will go directly toward hiring additional doctors and clinical staff …
… to buying laboratory equipment, including a new ultrasound machine and a much-needed “CBC machine” for detecting blood disorders and other medical conditions …
… and for additional medications, as our newly built Pharmacy is going through our limited supply much faster than anticipated.
In Ethiopia, 5% of children do not live beyond the age of 5. But here, at SSEJ Medical Pediatric Clinic, we have not had a single patient death.
So please. Take a moment out of your busy schedule to support our Clinic financially — while this letter is still in front of you.
For example, your donation can help us stock our pharmacy with ample supplies of the many different medications our children need to breathe easier, feel better, get rid of chronic or acute pain, heal from injury, or knock out a potentially dangerous infection.
Something as simple as an antibiotic or vitamin that American Jews take for granted and can get in minutes – but is often unattainable for parents of very sick children here in Gondar.
Simply indicate the amount you are willing give on the enclosed Donor Card. Then mail it back to us with your payment today, using the enclosed reply envelope.
Sincerely,
P.S. Struggle to Save Ethiopian Jewry (SSEJ) is the largest charity providing humanitarian assistance for the Jewish community in Ethiopia. And, with SSEJ being a U.S.-based 501(c)(3), your contribution to the SSEJ Medical Clinic is tax deductible.
P.P.S. Founded in 2000 with the assistance of our Founding Honorary Chairman Elie Wiesel, SSEJ has a dual mission. First, our ultimate goal is to enable all Ethiopian Jews make Aliyah—as thousands before them have already done, many with our assistance and support.
And second, in the meantime, to provide the approximately 3,000 Jews still trapped in Ethiopia with assistance for school, camp, food, and especially, here at our Medical
Clinic, health care. By focusing on this important dual mission, SSEJ helps Ethiopian Jews enjoy a better quality of life for as long as they are stuck here …
… and a much more blessed life when they leave Ethiopia to make Aliyah—and at long last migrate to, and dwell in, the Promised Land.