Girls House
In Soddo, in the heart of southern Ethiopia, the Girls House of the Busajo Campus welcomes girls and young women rescued from street violence. Here they find what they may never have had: a safe place, someone to listen, and a concrete path toward autonomy.
Who they are
In Soddo, a city in southern Ethiopia, around 3,000 minors live on the streets. For girls and young women, this reality is particularly harsh: early marriages, abuse, extreme poverty, exploitation. Stories that begin in rural villages and too often end in the city, with no way out.
Since 2013, the Busajo Campus — run entirely by Ethiopian staff — has been working to change this. Within it, the Girls House welcomes up to 30 girls and young women in a residential programme: a safe home, regular meals, education, vocational training, psychological support. Not a dormitory — a real community, with workshops, sports facilities, vegetable gardens.
The journey unfolds in four stages: prevention and first contact in the villages of origin, welcome and recovery, education and vocational training, reintegration into the community. The ultimate goal is autonomy — a job, a home, the ability to build something of one's own.
How our support works
Casa Costa Foundation ETS has supported this project since 2019 with an annual contribution covering the everyday costs that make the Casa delle Bambine possible: school enrolments and educational materials, educators' salaries, medicines and medical expenses, personal hygiene supplies for the girls and cleaning materials for the shared spaces.
Concrete, necessary things that don't make headlines — but without which nothing works.
Why we do it
Genuine hospitality — the kind that offers not just a roof, but dignity, care and opportunity — can transform lives and entire communities. This is not assistance: it is an investment in people's capacity to build a different future.
It is the same conviction that guides Casa Costa Foundation in everything it does. The road is long. But when it is walked with dignity, it really does lead somewhere.
