The Ethiopian Diaspora Fellowship (EDF) program is designed to promote leadership development, public service and creative storytelling.
05/07/2022
🔍 Meet Sinna, Growth Strategy & Technology Lead at iceaddis and one of this year‘s fellows!
Sinna is from New York and has a background in management consulting within the tech industry.
While working for her partner organization, Sinna will support the leadership and operation of an incubation program for African-centered startups using Cardano's blockchain platform. She's thrilled at this opportunity to further cultivate innovation in Ethiopia's tech hub and to learn more about social entrepreneurship opportunities at iceaddis!
05/06/2022
🔍 Meet Mearon, Business Development Officer at Whiz Kids Workshop and one of this year’s fellows!
Prior to becoming an EDF fellow, Mearon worked at a private law firm as an Immigration Paralegal in Atlanta, GA. This position helped refine her administrative management skills while cultivating an enhanced understanding of U.S. immigration law, regulation, and proceedings.
Mearon works under the commerce department in developing proposals and winning contracts at Whiz Kids Workshop!
05/05/2022
🔍 Meet Kidest, current Project Coordinator at St. Paul's Hospital Millenium Medical College and one of this year’s fellows!
Kidest's educational and professional background includes public service and public health education. She has served as an Americorps member for two years and is currently working as Secretary for , a non-profit organization supporting children's education in Ethiopia.
Kidest is with St. Paul's Millennium Medical College working for the Office of Innovative Strategies and Operations.
05/04/2022
🔍 Meet Betanya, Project Lead at KP Innovative Solutions and one of this year’s fellows!
Prior to EDF, Betanya worked as a Research Assistant for Understood.org where she utilized demographic data to more accurately determine the prevalence of individuals living with learning disabilities in the U.S. Concurrently, she consulted with her alma mater, Spelman College to integrate gender and sexuality studies throughout the college’s curriculum. Her work ultimately led her to develop a book outline on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for Ellavate Solutions.
Betanya currently works as a Project Lead at KP Innovative Solutions where she manages stakeholder relationships and utilizes design thinking to unlock creative strategies within Addis Ababa.
05/03/2022
🔍 Meet Belan, Communications Officer at St. Paul’s Hospital Millenium Medical College and one of this year’s fellows!
Before moving to Addis, Belan was the Strategy and Innovation Manager for the City of Burlington’s Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging Department. She oversaw the development of the first-ever comprehensive Racial Equity Strategic Plan and utilized data and community engagement to implement its directives.
She was also the co-founder and strategic lead of the Vermont Health Equity Initiative (VHEI) – an organization that advocates for, organizes, and promotes COVID-19 vaccination clinics for people of color. She now directs VHEI in utilizing data, education, policy, and collective action to address other local health disparities.
Belan currently works as a Communications Officer at , where she is developing the hospital’s communications strategy to be optimized for health education and interagency collaboration.
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Ethiopian Diaspora Fellowship started in 2014 as the first fellowship programs solely focused on the young, Ethiopian-American professionals.
We started by sending out a survey to young Ethiopian diaspora to understand their needs listen to their desires to lead, serve, create in their country of origin. We received almost four hundred people responding in three weeks to over twenty-three questions. It was a lightbulb moment for us. Seventy-six percent of respondents considered themselves two or more cultures.
1.5 and 2nd generation people embrace their identities and want to understand the power they have being bi-cultural people.
We used the survey results, academic research on diplomacy and fellowship programs, forged connections with other diaspora focused groups, and sent our first cohort to Ethiopian in 2015.
We train fellows on leadership, service, creative storytelling, identity, history, and professional growth and then send them to Ethiopia for 6-month skills-based fellowships. Since we’ve launched, we’ve worked with numerous partners, fellows, and have grown our network in the U.S and Ethiopia. We’re excited about the impact thus far, and looking forward to watching this community prosper through collaboration.
Ethiopian Diaspora Fellowship aims to create and support the next generation of Ethiopian-American leaders.
