16/05/2026
Tangent Malta in Ethiopia 🇪🇹 Ephraim’s Story.
Yesterday, during our visit to Kidane Mehret School, we met Ephraim, the school librarian, a university graduate, and now also a writer of children’s books.
But his story began very differently.
Many years ago, Sr Laetitia Borg noticed a man begging in a square while holding a one-year-old child suffering from cerebral palsy. The child’s mother had abandoned him shortly after birth because of the child’s condition.
Deeply moved by the situation, Sr Laetitia immediately arranged medical care through a doctor she knew, while also ensuring the family received food, clothing, and support.
In return, she asked the father to stop using the child for begging.
As time passed, Sr Laetitia continued helping the child and eventually enrolled him in her school, determined to give him something that poverty could never take away…..education!
One day, when the boy was around six years old, he suddenly stopped attending school. Concerned, Sr Laetitia went searching for him and discovered that the father had returned to begging with the child in another square.
She found him again, and this time took even closer care of his future.
Despite the challenges caused by his condition, she continued supporting his education every step of the way, even obtaining special permission for extended examination time so he could sit for his exams fairly and with dignity.
That little boy went on to successfully complete school, attend university, major in Computer Science, and minor in Literature.
Today, Ephraim works at the very same school as its librarian. He also writes children’s books, which Sr Laetitia still helps him publish!!
He is one of many who lovingly call her “Mama.”
This is the true power of education, compassion, and refusing to give up on a child💛💛 We did not simply meet a librarian. We met a living proof of what can happen when somebody chooses not to walk away from a child society had already given up on.
One person believed in him.
One child was given an education.
And an entire future was rewritten.
❤️🇲🇹🇪🇹