When Tsehai Wodajo was in middle school, a young Swedish teacher arrived in her Ethiopian village and quickly bonded with her. The woman left six months later, but for years she sent money that allowed Wodajo to attend the nearest high school — in a town where she shuttled between the homes of relatives.

Wodajo went on to complete college, start a career in broadcasting, move to the Twin Cities, get a master's degree, enter social work and raise three college graduates. In the intervening decades, she says, few of the barriers that keep most Ethiopian girls from completing high school have lifted. More than a decade ago, Wodajo founded a nonprofit that supports promising female students in her homeland on their way to graduation.

Of some 400 girls who've participated in the program, about 100 have gone on to get vocational or college degrees or are working on it, says Kathleen Coskran, board member of Resources for the Enrichment of African Lives, or REAL.

"The girls have shown us they are committed to their lives," Wodajo said.

In 2001, Wodajo, now a social worker with Hennepin County, was involved with a nonprofit she helped start, focused on ushering Twin Cities refugees and other immigrant women into leadership positions. But she says her heart was with young women back in Ethiopia, where a recent United Nations report estimated less than a fifth of girls graduate from high school.

Wodajo tapped friendships and connections on both sides of the Atlantic to set up REAL over the next three years.

In eight Ethiopian communities, committees of local men and women identify girls at risk of dropping out of school, often because of the death of a parent. REAL pairs the girls with a U.S. sponsor who contributes $30 a month to help them stay in school. A local mentor supports them academically and guides them in putting some of the money into a college fund. Participants become an informal support group.

"The girls build a sisterhood," Wodajo says.

Many in the nonprofit's stable of Minnesota sponsors have stuck with the effort from the start. A handful have traveled to Ethiopia with Wodajo to meet the girls they support. Cheryl Ann Bates, a retired masseuse from Minneapolis, has taken three trips. Last fall, she sat in a rural town hall as girls spoke about their determination to stay in school; they spoke about receiving letters from their sponsors, cheering them on all the way from Minnesota.

"Everyone in the entire hall was crying, the women and the men," Bates said.

The program counts among its graduates a lawyer, a construction worker and a young woman who recently earned a degree in mechanical engineering. Many have become nurses or started restaurants and other small businesses.

Wodajo says the annual dropout rate for program participants has averaged just 6 percent.

Wodajo's goal now is to make the program less dependent on its stateside sponsors. She recently hired a local coordinator, a former participant who almost dropped out of the ninth grade when her father died.

Wodajo's Swedish daughter-in-law helped her track down her middle school teacher turned benefactor. In 2008, she reunited with the woman, a high school teacher who brought a group of students to Ethiopia. She has since become a REAL sponsor.

To find out more about REAL, visit real-africa.org.

Mila Koumpilova • 612-673-6781