"If poverty is not ended, it is because it does not matter. Hunger is a planned, tolerated genocide."

ÁNGEL OLARAN

"Your face falls ashamed thinking that you belong to the first world."

ÁNGEL OLARAN

"It is said that the Church is the voice of those who have no voice, but I believe that those who do not have a voice should be the voice of the Church."

ÁNGEL OLARAN

"We take the bread away from here to bring that money to a society that is almost crumbling for wealth."

ÁNGEL OLARAN

About Ángel Olaran

Abba Malaku (name by which he is known in the city of Wukro, Ethiopia, Malaku means “My Angel”) is a missionary who has carried out humanitarian work in Africa for much of his life, for more than 25 years developing it in Ethiopia, in the tigray area. But it is better for him to describe his own work:

I was born in Guipúzcoa, in Hernani, a lot of years ago. I worked for 4 or 5 years in a bank. Later, somehow, the idea of ​​what was known as the world of missions or Third World came to me. I wanted to work in Africa, it was clear to me, and I don’t know why. I got in touch with the Missionaries of Africa. I ordered myself when I was 23, after military service, and when they asked me where I wanted to work, I had a preference for Tanzania.

For me Jesus is a very important person. What He has given me does not correspond to me, it is not mine, it is for others. It has been given to me free of charge and I must give it free of charge. I believe that personal development is a function of the work that I can do for others. Develop what I have but not for myself, but to put it at the service of others. In this way I also develop my personality. This is the concept that I have of God.

On the one hand Mireri’s social ideology, and on the other my personal experience of Jesus, brought me to Africa. I have been in Tanzania for 20 years and have been in Ethiopia for more than 25 years.

It is said that the Church is the voice of those who have no voice, but I believe that those who do not have a voice should be the voice of the Church. But today these people have no voice in the Church. They are not counted on, nor discussed with them, not programmed with them. They are something like the object of our charity, and I think they should be subjects of development. From that perspective I work.

I believe that the underdevelopment of Africa is primarily due to the lack of infrastructure that encourages investment in the continent.

We have the problem that there are many African leaders who are not honest. In the 60-70s Africa became independent from the European colonial powers, and I believe that now it has to become independent from many of its own leaders. There is a lot of corruption, a lot of nepotism. Leaders are untouchable. When Africa became independent, it hardly had any trained people to confront, argue or propose to politicians. The university and intellectual world is growing now, and they may start to oppose it. The independence of these politicians may also be achieved, who entered following the same ideology as the Europeans. Perhaps they have changed the color, but not the mentality, to take advantage of the power to benefit themselves.

There is also an international problem. Africa has a very strong agriculture and produces a lot, but the prices are set in Europe. Africa cannot discuss prices. The governments here cannot support their farmers as the European and American governments do, so they cannot compete with market prices, causing the economy to collapse. There are people who grew coffee and can no longer, neither cotton nor sugar, because of this unfair competition in the international market, which is clearly criminal. This is a very serious cause of poverty in Africa.

Then there are also the tax havens that European governments have set up, where they are tax-free when it comes to selling their products, and yet they come here, and there are a lot of taxes that they do not pay, and they demand from the people of here that if it does. There are many powerful international companies in this situation, and governments have no power over them.

We have a lot to do with here, but the international economic system plays very in favor of Europe, and in a very unfair way. It is like taking a person’s daily bread away from here, in case he may be missing from a banquet in Europe. We take the bread away from here to bring that money to a society that is almost crumbling for wealth.

I read some statistics after everything that Blair and people like him have said that it is the time of Africa, and that the population listens to and thinks that something is being done, but only in Africa there are 450 million more people who live worse than 2 years ago. I think that forgiving the debt are small patches, since on the one hand you forgive the debt, but on the other you do not change the economic system that is creating such debts.

Everything that is aid for development encounters many obstacles, but we do not see that there are any so that in this country, or in African countries, there are warplanes or military weapons. We have never heard of a war here that ended because the ammunition ran out, however many people die because it is impossible to get food to them. And I believe that there is no serious will, neither political, nor economic, nor religious to solve the problem.

Then there is globalization, which is a fact that we cannot get off of, and not because Africa does not want to, but because Europe – the first world – needs it to take advantage of the third world.

I would like to imagine a group of men and women who automatically kill 30,000 children each year. There would be an unthinkable reaction, they would be criminals, terrorists, public enemy number one. However, this system causes the death of millions of children, or that as many millions, as young as 13 or 14, have to prostitute themselves, and nobody puts their hands on their heads.

Many of these girls are forced into prostitution, because they have no other way out. And they prostitute her body, but not her soul. Instead, many of Europe’s power groups do not prostitute their bodies, but prostitute their souls on a daily basis. And it is this prostitution of their soul that makes these girls have to prostitute their bodies.

Some consider that taking care of a child is care work, which has nothing to do with human rights. However, one of the first rights a person has is food. It is not a welfare thing. Food, health, education and shelter are inalienable rights”.

Wisdom within everyone’s reach

Angel offers us a daily dose of wisdom. A phrase that will make us reflect, grow and get to know him a little more every day.

Learn about Ángel's work

Come to Ethiopia and get to know Ángel’s project and work in first person. Whether you want to go as a volunteer or as a visitor, we await you with open arms.

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