Everything Okay – Children of Ethiopia

Exhi­bi­tion title: “Every­thing Okay” – About the Chil­dren of Ethiopia.

A Doc­u­men­tary by Alexan­der Klebe.

Faces of inno­cence, of simple-heartedness and of grace.

They live in the moun­tains, as goatherds, as farm­ers and as broth­ers and sis­ters. Their future lies within their dreams, like in the Leg­end of Kaldi – the Ethiopian goatherd who saw the bright rubies in his dreams and then found the first cof­fee cher­ries, which gave him the pos­si­bil­i­ties to live hap­pily ever after. Will the chil­dren of today´s Ethiopia too be able to live a decent life, with what their fathers did? Who are cof­fee farm­ers, priests or tour guides.

These days many of the young men are dream­ing to live in the big cities. They wan­der along the muddy path­ways and fol­low the Korean and Chi­nese road con­struc­tion machin­ery towards Addis Abeba. In the cap­i­tal of Ethiopia the self built houses are being turned it con­struc­tion sites. Behind yel­low and green fences the soon-to-be sky­scrap­ers are ris­ing up, and pre­cess­ing the pop­u­la­tion boom. The first Super­mar­kets are open­ing up next to a few extrav­a­gant Lounges and Spas, which charge more than 99% of the peo­ple can earn in one month.

For­eign Invest­ment is spread­ing fast in Africa. Espe­cially in Ethiopia, which is vastly depend­ing on for­eign aid, espe­cially from the world food pro­gramme. At the same time it is export­ing cof­fee (#1 in Africa), flow­ers and rice. 85% of the pop­u­la­tion are farm­ers, liv­ing in rural areas.

Their future is unpre­dictable. Whether they will be able to become self-sustainable with a vari­ety of pro­grams that seek to empower their com­mu­ni­ties or take the road of migra­tion into Addis.