The Estephanos Monastery is on an island in Lake Haik, part of Tehuledere district in South Wollo where LIVES has one of its project sites. The first church was built in 862 AD; in 1262 AD a monastery was established.
Since then, it delivers spiritual, social and development activities for the inhabitants of the surrounding area. The monks and hermits started agricultural activities to feed themselves and then continued to set up a farm enterprise that produces various irrigated fruits (papaya, sugarcane, mango, guava, banana, orange and coffee) and vegetables (cabbage, carrot, and pepper, tomato, onion, potato and spices) both for themselves and the local markets.
The monks also produce livestock – fattened cattle, dairy, poultry and apiculture. They produce forage crops under the fruit trees and feed fruit and vegetable wastes to their dairy and beef animals. They also apply litter from their poultry farm and manure from their…
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