For Helen Abayneh it looked as though her life would always remain cheerless. Born as the fifth of seven children in a hut with walls made of woven willow and mud, there were many days on which she simply did not have enough to eat.

So that the younger children would receive more, the parents and older siblings would often go without their food. Things were particularly critical at the beginning of the school year, when the family had to borrow money to buy schoolbooks. Even less was left for the injera, the daily pancakes of sorghum millet. The Ethiopian State pays her father, a teacher, a salary of € 30 per month – much too little for the nine mouths to be fed.

When Helen left school she had the same prospects as her brothers and sisters, who could find neither education or work in a district with virtually no handicrafts or industry. Then Helen heard about the Agrotechnical Training College (ATTC) of Menschen für Menschen, a unique facility in Ethiopia. The 21-year-old passed the stringent acceptance test and was allowed to embark on a three-year course of training as an electrician – the key to a job.