The century old traditional house of Dejazmach Ayalew Emiru is to be handed over to Liya Kebede, a super model residing in New York. Feleke Yimer, deputy general manager of the city, has, on June 2, 2008, instructed the city Housing Development Project Office to furnish condominium housing to 24 head of households who are currently occupying the building.
The decision to grant the historical house to Liya was made by Berhane Deressa, former mayor of the city, during his last days in office. The house is located in Kirkos District, Kebele 02/03, behind the Cameroon Embassy off Africa Avenue (Bole Road).
“The one-storey building is not in a good form now,” says Worku Ambaye, who has been staying in the house since 1974. “Rain leaks into the house. It is because I have no better option that I am living here with four of my children.”
Every household has a single or two rooms. Although the house was initially put up with lumber, the residents have been overhauling it with corrugated iron sheets.
What are considered as historical relics in the city master plan are 33 churches, two mosques, 73 houses of former chiefs, 2 institutions, and 17 monuments, trenches and bridges.
The city has plans to outsource such houses to private investors that would like to use them as galleries, hotels or exhibition and bazaar spots. Thus, Dejazmach Ayalew’s was granted to the famous Ethiopian model. Dejazmach is a military title meaning commander of the central body of traditional Ethiopian armed forces. Dejazmach, who died forty years ago, was the leader in the fight against Italy.
Liya’s plan is to revamp the houses a bid to make it a hub for tourists, according to those who were exposed to her proposal.
Liya was born and raised in Addis Abeba. While she was attending Lycee Guebremariam, she was introduced to a French modeling agent. After completing her studies, she moved to France to pursue work through a Parisian agency. She later relocated to New York City. For her 2.5 million dollars earning in July 2007, Forbes named her the eleventh in the list of the world’s 15 top earning models.
http://www.addisfortune.com/New%20York%20Based%20Ethiopian%20Model%20to%20Revamp%20Historical%20Relic.htm
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Chris Tucker to make a movie in Ethiopia
ENA) — The famous American Actor, Chris Tucker is thinking to do a movie in Ethiopia, his favorite African country where he considers as “a second home”.
The actor who was among more than 200 delegates who paid a two-day visit to Ethiopia before heading to Arusha, Tanzania, for the 8th summit of Leon H. Sullivan Foundation transplanted tree in Ethiopia on Friday.
Chris Tucker told ENA on the spot that “Hopefully, I can come back and do a movie. I have to figure out.”
He said “I love Ethiopia. It is my favorite African country. Because of the history… it is just beautiful and the people are beautiful and nice.”
He said “I am happy to be here, this is like my second home.”
“Hopefully I can come back in a year or two …and just show that Ethiopia has so much beautiful greenery. This is a great, great flourishing land.”
“This is my second time (to be in Ethiopia). I am looking forward to coming back. On my first time, I didn’t go out the countryside. Today we went out a little further out. And see beautiful trees and hills. That was really nice,” he said.
Another member of the delegation, CB Hackworth, is also planning to come back to Ethiopia on a film documentary project on Ethiopia.
He said he wanted to stopover before heading to Arusha for a number of reasons, one of which is because he “…wanted to have some meeting here to discuss the possibility of doing a film here in Ethiopia.”
“What we do … is we tell positive stories about Africa,” he said.
According to him, what people outside of Africa know about the continent is what they are told by the media. Mostly, he said, the international media make Africa look a bad place, which he observed is not the true story of Africa.
“People in the US don’t realize they can visit a beautiful city like Addis that there are wonderful hotels and it is peaceful, that they are safe, if people come to know this then they will visit. And it will increase tourism and help the economy. So that is what we are trying to do with the film.”
“We are trying to find positive stories,” he said adding, the initiative of Ethiopia to replenish its lost forest resources in connection with its millennium celebration, which he considers as a wonderful way of marking the millennium, is a positive story.
He said “… News is something happening. For large news organizations, they don’t rush out and spend money and resources to report good things are happening. They rush out and spend money and resources to tell you about a war or a famine. If things are going good they generally don’t consider that news. We are trying to bring some balance to that and say there is more to the world. There is more to Africa.”
“Ethiopia is very civilized. Ethiopia also fought against colonialism. So unlike a lot of parts of Africa, Ethiopia really was able to put its own imprint on its own country. So a lot of your developments are from Ethiopians. So I think that is unique, I think that is something that people who visit will find very interesting,” he said
The actor who was among more than 200 delegates who paid a two-day visit to Ethiopia before heading to Arusha, Tanzania, for the 8th summit of Leon H. Sullivan Foundation transplanted tree in Ethiopia on Friday.
Chris Tucker told ENA on the spot that “Hopefully, I can come back and do a movie. I have to figure out.”
He said “I love Ethiopia. It is my favorite African country. Because of the history… it is just beautiful and the people are beautiful and nice.”
He said “I am happy to be here, this is like my second home.”
“Hopefully I can come back in a year or two …and just show that Ethiopia has so much beautiful greenery. This is a great, great flourishing land.”
“This is my second time (to be in Ethiopia). I am looking forward to coming back. On my first time, I didn’t go out the countryside. Today we went out a little further out. And see beautiful trees and hills. That was really nice,” he said.
Another member of the delegation, CB Hackworth, is also planning to come back to Ethiopia on a film documentary project on Ethiopia.
He said he wanted to stopover before heading to Arusha for a number of reasons, one of which is because he “…wanted to have some meeting here to discuss the possibility of doing a film here in Ethiopia.”
“What we do … is we tell positive stories about Africa,” he said.
According to him, what people outside of Africa know about the continent is what they are told by the media. Mostly, he said, the international media make Africa look a bad place, which he observed is not the true story of Africa.
“People in the US don’t realize they can visit a beautiful city like Addis that there are wonderful hotels and it is peaceful, that they are safe, if people come to know this then they will visit. And it will increase tourism and help the economy. So that is what we are trying to do with the film.”
“We are trying to find positive stories,” he said adding, the initiative of Ethiopia to replenish its lost forest resources in connection with its millennium celebration, which he considers as a wonderful way of marking the millennium, is a positive story.
He said “… News is something happening. For large news organizations, they don’t rush out and spend money and resources to report good things are happening. They rush out and spend money and resources to tell you about a war or a famine. If things are going good they generally don’t consider that news. We are trying to bring some balance to that and say there is more to the world. There is more to Africa.”
“Ethiopia is very civilized. Ethiopia also fought against colonialism. So unlike a lot of parts of Africa, Ethiopia really was able to put its own imprint on its own country. So a lot of your developments are from Ethiopians. So I think that is unique, I think that is something that people who visit will find very interesting,” he said
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The golden age of Ethiopian music
For 17 years, Addis Ababa resounded to African rhythms, Western pop, and European band music. Now that heady mix is coming to the UK. By Andy Morgan
Let's compare two snapshots of recent Ethiopian history. The first is from 1968, when Emperor Haile Selassie I ruled over the proudest and most eccentric nation in Africa, with its Christian Coptic church (that was already well established when the British still worshipped pagan gods), its feudal menagerie of princes, barons and serfs, its vast and verdant central plateau, and its pulsating capital city Addis Ababa, which was then one of the pre-eminent cultural, social and diplomatic hot-spots of independent Africa.
At this time, down in the Wube Bereha, the red-light district of central Addis, royalty rubbed its haughty shoulders with generals and gigolos, bar-room philosophers and peace-corps workers, diplomats and prostitutes, in an intoxicatingly illicit celebration of youth and freedom. Plush hotels resounded to patent-leather-clad feet dancing to the sounds of resident "soul" combos like the Ras Band, All Star Band, Zula Band, Venus Band, Wabe Shebele Band, Roha Band and Dahlak Band. The old guard fumed against youthful decadence and the unwelcome "foreign" influences that seemed to be invading the nation's cerebral cortex. The old order was dying, and those who could either afford or blag their way into the party were dancing like tomorrow would never come.
Fast-forward a mere 17 years to 1985 and the headlines were monotonously brutal: famine, corruption, Eritrean separatists, Live Aid, Bob Geldof, Stalinism African-style, starving children and flies crawling across the face of a desperate nation. Francis Falceto, a young music promoter from Poitiers in France, stepped nervously off an Aeroflot flight from Moscow and into the dark, empty streets of Ethiopia's capital, which had been cleared of all joy and nightlife by the midnight curfew imposed in the wake of the revolution of 1974.
The "swinging" Addis of the late 1960s had become a ghost-town populated by bristling armed patrols and legions of stray dogs. Fear and suspicion reigned supreme. The merest human initiative required a rubber stamp, a visa, a nod from the appropriate apparatchik or minister. Falceto had given himself one week to find two giants of the golden age of modern Ethiopian music – the singer Mahmoud Ahmed and the composer-arranger Mulatu Astatqe – and bring them back for a tour of France. The meetings happened, but the mission failed. It would take many more trips and years of research and frustration before Falceto could begin opening the ears of the world to Ethiopian music.
The tragic discrepancy between these two images of Ethiopia, and the urge to re-establish a just equilibrium between them, is at the heart of Falceto's 20-year-old devotion to the country and its music. Sitting in a hotel room in Camden Town hours before receiving a 2008 BBC Award for World Music for Ethiopiques, his epic CD reissue series, the Frenchman explains his motives while chain-smoking. "Until recently I couldn't start an article or interview without first trying to put things right. Now, I feel that I've spoken enough on that particular subject and that what you can hear or see through the Ethiopian music of that era is like a plea for us to revise the vision we have of that country."
Quite apart from breaking the simplistic bond that has yoked Ethiopia and famine together in the popular imagination, Ethiopiques has won numerous awards, scored a world music hit with its recent Very Best of Ethiopiques release, corralled a cosmopolitan fanbase and revived the careers of some of the leading lights of the golden age, which lasted a mere decade and a half from 1960 to the mid-1970s.
Ahmed is now an A-list attraction on the global-music circuit, saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya has penetrated new musical realms and audiences thanks to his collaboration with Dutch impro-punks the Ex, and the ubiquitous Astatqe travels the world, basking in the adulation of fans of leftfield jazz such as Gilles Peterson, who played host to him at a recent day of gigs and workshops at London's Red Bull Academy.
Now all three along with the singer Alèmayèhu Eshèté will be reunited to perform in a concert - their first ever together outside Ethiopia - in London next month. The 23 beautifully packaged and annotated CD volumes in the series have achieved something that even the Ethiopians themselves believed would never happen.
"When I first met Mahmoud Ahmed in Addis," Falceto explains, "he couldn't imagine, and Ethiopians in general couldn't imagine, that their music could appeal to foreigners. It took years and years of touring in the West for them to accept that non-Ethiopians could swing, groove, jump and love this music."
Cultural isolationism is a natural product of Ethiopia's unique history and geographical location. High up on their lush green plateau, Ethiopians have enjoyed a spiritual and political independence that has lasted thousands of years and was sullied only briefly by Mussolini and his delusions of imperial grandeur in the 1930s.
The earlier victory of Emperor Menelik and his general Ras Makonnen over the Italians at the battle of Adwa in 1896 brought diplomats and bounty-hunters from all over the world to the Imperial court. It also prompted the Tsar of Russia, impressed by the fierce resistance of this ancient Christian kingdom to European colonialism, to donate a full set of brass-band instruments along with the services of a Polish bandleader by the name of Milewski to Emperor Menelik. This is largely how an unorthodox love of European orchestral music was injected into the Ethiopian bloodstream.
By the 1950s, every imperial institution of note, from the army, the police and the imperial bodyguard to the Haile Selassie Theatre, had its own orchestra, comprising scores of disciplined musicians who enjoyed the tutelage of dedicated foreign bandleaders, such as the Austrian Franz Zelwecker or the Armenian Nerses Nalbandian. But it was only after the failed putsch of 1960, in which the imperial bodyguard and its orchestra were heavily implicated, that the strictly regimented system of institutional bands started to crumble and smaller, hipper, funkier groups began to forge a new sound that was both brazenly modern, with a sonic approach broadly synchronised to the soul, jazz and funk that spanned the globe, and resolutely Ethiopian at the same time.
Listen to any of the Ethiopiques CDs, but especially The Very Best Of... or Volume 1: the Golden Years of Modern Ethiopian Music, and this essential quality of alien familiarity hits you from the first note. It's as if Falceto stumbled on a kind of modern musical equivalent of the Galapagos Islands, where inbound musical species, immune to the Latin American, Arabic or Asian influences that dominate the rest of Africa's musical landscape, mutated into strange and wonderful hybrids, executed with a level of musicianship that could stand alongside the best in the West. The quavering vocal style of Muluqen Mellesse, Teshome Meteku, Seyfou Johannes or Alemayehu Eshete, and sparse jagged arrangements of Astatqe or Girma Beyene all provoke the same reaction in the receptive novice:" What on Earth is this?"
"There's nationalism, even at times a chauvinism that borders on the xenophobic, in the Ethiopian spirit," explains Falceto, "and it predates the colonial era by many hundreds of years. You feel that in the music. An Ethiopian will never slap you on the back and say, 'OK, mate, how's it going?' They look down at you and think, 'OK, if you're here it means that things are better than where you come from'. I find that very impressive, but it means that it's sometimes hard to work with them."
The payback for Falceto's obsessive perseverance has come not only in the shape of the international success of Ethiopiques but also the hard-earned respect of Ethiopians both at home and abroad, who have rejoiced in the reversal of the cultural surgery performed by Colonel Haile Mengistu Mariam and his Stalinist Derg regime after the revolution. Ethiopians in their fifties or sixties finally have hard evidence with which to convince their children and grandchildren that their homeland really did achieve musical greatness.
Ethiopiques in concert, 27 June, Barbican, London (020 7638 8891; www.barbican.org.uk) 'The Very Best of Ethiopiques' is out now
Let's compare two snapshots of recent Ethiopian history. The first is from 1968, when Emperor Haile Selassie I ruled over the proudest and most eccentric nation in Africa, with its Christian Coptic church (that was already well established when the British still worshipped pagan gods), its feudal menagerie of princes, barons and serfs, its vast and verdant central plateau, and its pulsating capital city Addis Ababa, which was then one of the pre-eminent cultural, social and diplomatic hot-spots of independent Africa.
At this time, down in the Wube Bereha, the red-light district of central Addis, royalty rubbed its haughty shoulders with generals and gigolos, bar-room philosophers and peace-corps workers, diplomats and prostitutes, in an intoxicatingly illicit celebration of youth and freedom. Plush hotels resounded to patent-leather-clad feet dancing to the sounds of resident "soul" combos like the Ras Band, All Star Band, Zula Band, Venus Band, Wabe Shebele Band, Roha Band and Dahlak Band. The old guard fumed against youthful decadence and the unwelcome "foreign" influences that seemed to be invading the nation's cerebral cortex. The old order was dying, and those who could either afford or blag their way into the party were dancing like tomorrow would never come.
Fast-forward a mere 17 years to 1985 and the headlines were monotonously brutal: famine, corruption, Eritrean separatists, Live Aid, Bob Geldof, Stalinism African-style, starving children and flies crawling across the face of a desperate nation. Francis Falceto, a young music promoter from Poitiers in France, stepped nervously off an Aeroflot flight from Moscow and into the dark, empty streets of Ethiopia's capital, which had been cleared of all joy and nightlife by the midnight curfew imposed in the wake of the revolution of 1974.
The "swinging" Addis of the late 1960s had become a ghost-town populated by bristling armed patrols and legions of stray dogs. Fear and suspicion reigned supreme. The merest human initiative required a rubber stamp, a visa, a nod from the appropriate apparatchik or minister. Falceto had given himself one week to find two giants of the golden age of modern Ethiopian music – the singer Mahmoud Ahmed and the composer-arranger Mulatu Astatqe – and bring them back for a tour of France. The meetings happened, but the mission failed. It would take many more trips and years of research and frustration before Falceto could begin opening the ears of the world to Ethiopian music.
The tragic discrepancy between these two images of Ethiopia, and the urge to re-establish a just equilibrium between them, is at the heart of Falceto's 20-year-old devotion to the country and its music. Sitting in a hotel room in Camden Town hours before receiving a 2008 BBC Award for World Music for Ethiopiques, his epic CD reissue series, the Frenchman explains his motives while chain-smoking. "Until recently I couldn't start an article or interview without first trying to put things right. Now, I feel that I've spoken enough on that particular subject and that what you can hear or see through the Ethiopian music of that era is like a plea for us to revise the vision we have of that country."
Quite apart from breaking the simplistic bond that has yoked Ethiopia and famine together in the popular imagination, Ethiopiques has won numerous awards, scored a world music hit with its recent Very Best of Ethiopiques release, corralled a cosmopolitan fanbase and revived the careers of some of the leading lights of the golden age, which lasted a mere decade and a half from 1960 to the mid-1970s.
Ahmed is now an A-list attraction on the global-music circuit, saxophonist Getatchew Mekurya has penetrated new musical realms and audiences thanks to his collaboration with Dutch impro-punks the Ex, and the ubiquitous Astatqe travels the world, basking in the adulation of fans of leftfield jazz such as Gilles Peterson, who played host to him at a recent day of gigs and workshops at London's Red Bull Academy.
Now all three along with the singer Alèmayèhu Eshèté will be reunited to perform in a concert - their first ever together outside Ethiopia - in London next month. The 23 beautifully packaged and annotated CD volumes in the series have achieved something that even the Ethiopians themselves believed would never happen.
"When I first met Mahmoud Ahmed in Addis," Falceto explains, "he couldn't imagine, and Ethiopians in general couldn't imagine, that their music could appeal to foreigners. It took years and years of touring in the West for them to accept that non-Ethiopians could swing, groove, jump and love this music."
Cultural isolationism is a natural product of Ethiopia's unique history and geographical location. High up on their lush green plateau, Ethiopians have enjoyed a spiritual and political independence that has lasted thousands of years and was sullied only briefly by Mussolini and his delusions of imperial grandeur in the 1930s.
The earlier victory of Emperor Menelik and his general Ras Makonnen over the Italians at the battle of Adwa in 1896 brought diplomats and bounty-hunters from all over the world to the Imperial court. It also prompted the Tsar of Russia, impressed by the fierce resistance of this ancient Christian kingdom to European colonialism, to donate a full set of brass-band instruments along with the services of a Polish bandleader by the name of Milewski to Emperor Menelik. This is largely how an unorthodox love of European orchestral music was injected into the Ethiopian bloodstream.
By the 1950s, every imperial institution of note, from the army, the police and the imperial bodyguard to the Haile Selassie Theatre, had its own orchestra, comprising scores of disciplined musicians who enjoyed the tutelage of dedicated foreign bandleaders, such as the Austrian Franz Zelwecker or the Armenian Nerses Nalbandian. But it was only after the failed putsch of 1960, in which the imperial bodyguard and its orchestra were heavily implicated, that the strictly regimented system of institutional bands started to crumble and smaller, hipper, funkier groups began to forge a new sound that was both brazenly modern, with a sonic approach broadly synchronised to the soul, jazz and funk that spanned the globe, and resolutely Ethiopian at the same time.
Listen to any of the Ethiopiques CDs, but especially The Very Best Of... or Volume 1: the Golden Years of Modern Ethiopian Music, and this essential quality of alien familiarity hits you from the first note. It's as if Falceto stumbled on a kind of modern musical equivalent of the Galapagos Islands, where inbound musical species, immune to the Latin American, Arabic or Asian influences that dominate the rest of Africa's musical landscape, mutated into strange and wonderful hybrids, executed with a level of musicianship that could stand alongside the best in the West. The quavering vocal style of Muluqen Mellesse, Teshome Meteku, Seyfou Johannes or Alemayehu Eshete, and sparse jagged arrangements of Astatqe or Girma Beyene all provoke the same reaction in the receptive novice:" What on Earth is this?"
"There's nationalism, even at times a chauvinism that borders on the xenophobic, in the Ethiopian spirit," explains Falceto, "and it predates the colonial era by many hundreds of years. You feel that in the music. An Ethiopian will never slap you on the back and say, 'OK, mate, how's it going?' They look down at you and think, 'OK, if you're here it means that things are better than where you come from'. I find that very impressive, but it means that it's sometimes hard to work with them."
The payback for Falceto's obsessive perseverance has come not only in the shape of the international success of Ethiopiques but also the hard-earned respect of Ethiopians both at home and abroad, who have rejoiced in the reversal of the cultural surgery performed by Colonel Haile Mengistu Mariam and his Stalinist Derg regime after the revolution. Ethiopians in their fifties or sixties finally have hard evidence with which to convince their children and grandchildren that their homeland really did achieve musical greatness.
Ethiopiques in concert, 27 June, Barbican, London (020 7638 8891; www.barbican.org.uk) 'The Very Best of Ethiopiques' is out now
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Beyonce, Jay-Z wedding confirmed
A licence confirming the marriage of Beyonce and Jay-Z has been filed with the authorities in New York, an official has said.
The couple held a lavish party in Manhattan earlier this month, but have refused to confirm that they were celebrating their nuptials.
Donna Conkling, a clerk in the suburb of Scarsdale, said the licence had been received by their offices.
The pair have not publicly acknowledged their liaison, dating back to 2002.
Ms Conkling also confirmed the licence had been signed by the official conducting the ceremony.
White tent
The celebration, which took place at Jay-Z's apartment on 4 April, was attended by actress Gwyneth Paltrow and Destiny's Child stars Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, according to US media reports.
White flowers and silver candelabras were delivered to the building in New York's Tribeca district, while a white tent was set up on the roof.
Knowles, 26, and 38-year-old Jay-Z - real name Shawn Carter - have collaborated musically on singles such as Deja Vu, '03 Bonnie and Clyde and Crazy In Love.
It was recently reported that Jay-Z was in talks with concert promoter Live Nation over a proposed $100m (£50.1m) deal which would cover recording, publishing, live shows and other rights.
He was president of hip-hop record label Def Jam until he stepped down in December, and will headline the Glastonbury festival this summer.Protests over Ethiopia pop singer
Ethiopia's most popular pop singer, Teddy Afro, has pleaded not guilty to causing the death of a young man in a hit and run incident 18 months ago.
Thousands of young people mounted an impromptu protest after the High Court hearing, running through the streets, shouting, "Teddy is innocent".
Unauthorised demonstrations are almost unheard of in Ethiopia and there was a heavy paramilitary police presence.
At a previous hearing, the noise of his fans almost drowned out proceedings.
More on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7362885.stm
Thousands of young people mounted an impromptu protest after the High Court hearing, running through the streets, shouting, "Teddy is innocent".
Unauthorised demonstrations are almost unheard of in Ethiopia and there was a heavy paramilitary police presence.
At a previous hearing, the noise of his fans almost drowned out proceedings.
More on http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7362885.stm
Monday, April 21, 2008
Ethiopian pop star in custody over hit-and-run
ADDIS ABABA, April 21 (Reuters Life!) - Ethiopia's best known pop star, Teddy Afro, was remanded in custody on Monday on a murder charge connected to a hit-and-run incident.
The 31-year-old singer, real name Tewodros Kassahun, was charged last week in connection with the death of an 18-year-old homeless man, Degu Yibelte, hit and killed by a BMW registered to Afro in Addis Ababa late last year. He denied the charge in court on Monday, and his appeal for bail was deferred to Wednesday.
Afro, who is hugely popular among young Ethiopians, sings mainly in the local Amharic language.
His last album release, Yasteseryal (Redemption), coincided with Ethiopia's 2005 election that led to violent protests and the jailing of opposition leaders.
Some of his lyrics were construed as politically controversial at the time.
The 31-year-old singer, real name Tewodros Kassahun, was charged last week in connection with the death of an 18-year-old homeless man, Degu Yibelte, hit and killed by a BMW registered to Afro in Addis Ababa late last year. He denied the charge in court on Monday, and his appeal for bail was deferred to Wednesday.
Afro, who is hugely popular among young Ethiopians, sings mainly in the local Amharic language.
His last album release, Yasteseryal (Redemption), coincided with Ethiopia's 2005 election that led to violent protests and the jailing of opposition leaders.
Some of his lyrics were construed as politically controversial at the time.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Teddy Afro – An Ethiopian Hero & a Prisoner of Conscience
By Golto Aila
Teddy Afro is a son of Ethiopia in the purest sense of the word "son"! He has used his talent to entertain us, all of us - young and old, from all backgrounds, and from all walks of life! What many of us preach on this kind of FORUMS, Teddy takes with him on the road - city to city, country to country and continent to continent! Teddy does not only entertain us with music, but he has used his musical as the most effective medium to convey the pain our people live through, day in and day out!
This advocate of justice for our people; this voice for the voiceless; this champion of the oppressed; this ultimate entertainer could have lived in luxury abroad and enjoyed life as most of us do, but knowing the risk to his own life, he returned home to continue the mission he has set for himself! Today he sits in the notorious Kaliti Prison, precisely because of what he does for his down-trodden compatriots! The humiliation he has suffered so far and will continue to suffer hence will be the most poignant symbol of our peoples' suffering for the last two decades!
The tyrannical regime in Ethiopia has spared no effort to silence the voices of those who dared to challenge them, and by locking up Teddy Afro, while simultaneously disenfranchising Ethiopia once again, it has clearly demonstrated its contempt for Ethiopia and its people!The Ethiopian dictator is doing what all dictators do - eliminating those who pose a threat to their grip on power! What shocks me time and again is the utter paralytic inaction on the part of the people into whose eyes this regime has been poking its fingers with impunity!
In the absence of an effective defense of the people’s interest, the regime has been riding roughshod on all Ethiopians irrespective of their background, as long as they are not toeing the line. As I have warned repeatedly in my many write-ups our Tigrean compatriots may well be bearing the brunt of this oppression – history will tell! In my recent write-ups many of which have appeared on these pages, I have tried to lay out why it is imperative of Ethiopians inside and outside Ethiopia form a solidarity forum to try and prevent Ethiopia from slip down the face of a cliff on the brink of which it is currently tittering! As in any culture, our youth are our pillars and future depends on them. I recently lamented that our generation is proving ineffective in the face of an onslaught on everything we value in our culture, I appealed to our youth to make a covenant with our Motherland, and advised the formation of “My Solidarity Forum” youth league!
We have lacked effective tool against this heinous regime, and not because of its strength, but rather because of our weakness! There is no any other way one can explain such humiliation of a population of 80 million people by a handful thugs! There is no organization that I know of in Ethiopia or outside Ethiopia today, to which we can turn and that is a crying shame!!!!
Let us show that we have spine! Let us show that we still have some residue of self- respect, let show that we have a culture we value, let us demonstrate to the world that we have what it takes to regain the dignity which has been the trade mark of our forbearers. Let us show our SOLIDARITY with this young hero who has given all he has for the dignity of his motherland. Let’s honor his mobilization at grass-root level to carry forth his lyrics of emancipation! Let’s show him something as a token of our appreciation for what he has done and continues to do for us! Let us show we have SPINE!
In making this call, may I refer you to my recent write-up “When Our Home is Burning”! Please study and use principle listed therein, and take responsibility to help our Motherland move get out of this darkness. Avoid waiting for someone else to take action and take the lead - evidence from our recent history does not support such an approach! Accept 100% responsibility for Teddy Afro's freedom and Ethiopia's freedom. Do something new, establish a new contact, call a meeting, distribute a flyer, and initiate “My Solidarity Forum”, anything! Don’t let Teddy Afro perish in the hands of one of the most inhuman administration on the continent of Africa today! We can save him, and we can save Ethiopia – we just need to demonstrate self-respect and pride in ourselves and our heritage!
Teddy Afro is a son of Ethiopia in the purest sense of the word "son"! He has used his talent to entertain us, all of us - young and old, from all backgrounds, and from all walks of life! What many of us preach on this kind of FORUMS, Teddy takes with him on the road - city to city, country to country and continent to continent! Teddy does not only entertain us with music, but he has used his musical as the most effective medium to convey the pain our people live through, day in and day out!
This advocate of justice for our people; this voice for the voiceless; this champion of the oppressed; this ultimate entertainer could have lived in luxury abroad and enjoyed life as most of us do, but knowing the risk to his own life, he returned home to continue the mission he has set for himself! Today he sits in the notorious Kaliti Prison, precisely because of what he does for his down-trodden compatriots! The humiliation he has suffered so far and will continue to suffer hence will be the most poignant symbol of our peoples' suffering for the last two decades!
The tyrannical regime in Ethiopia has spared no effort to silence the voices of those who dared to challenge them, and by locking up Teddy Afro, while simultaneously disenfranchising Ethiopia once again, it has clearly demonstrated its contempt for Ethiopia and its people!The Ethiopian dictator is doing what all dictators do - eliminating those who pose a threat to their grip on power! What shocks me time and again is the utter paralytic inaction on the part of the people into whose eyes this regime has been poking its fingers with impunity!
In the absence of an effective defense of the people’s interest, the regime has been riding roughshod on all Ethiopians irrespective of their background, as long as they are not toeing the line. As I have warned repeatedly in my many write-ups our Tigrean compatriots may well be bearing the brunt of this oppression – history will tell! In my recent write-ups many of which have appeared on these pages, I have tried to lay out why it is imperative of Ethiopians inside and outside Ethiopia form a solidarity forum to try and prevent Ethiopia from slip down the face of a cliff on the brink of which it is currently tittering! As in any culture, our youth are our pillars and future depends on them. I recently lamented that our generation is proving ineffective in the face of an onslaught on everything we value in our culture, I appealed to our youth to make a covenant with our Motherland, and advised the formation of “My Solidarity Forum” youth league!
We have lacked effective tool against this heinous regime, and not because of its strength, but rather because of our weakness! There is no any other way one can explain such humiliation of a population of 80 million people by a handful thugs! There is no organization that I know of in Ethiopia or outside Ethiopia today, to which we can turn and that is a crying shame!!!!
Let us show that we have spine! Let us show that we still have some residue of self- respect, let show that we have a culture we value, let us demonstrate to the world that we have what it takes to regain the dignity which has been the trade mark of our forbearers. Let us show our SOLIDARITY with this young hero who has given all he has for the dignity of his motherland. Let’s honor his mobilization at grass-root level to carry forth his lyrics of emancipation! Let’s show him something as a token of our appreciation for what he has done and continues to do for us! Let us show we have SPINE!
In making this call, may I refer you to my recent write-up “When Our Home is Burning”! Please study and use principle listed therein, and take responsibility to help our Motherland move get out of this darkness. Avoid waiting for someone else to take action and take the lead - evidence from our recent history does not support such an approach! Accept 100% responsibility for Teddy Afro's freedom and Ethiopia's freedom. Do something new, establish a new contact, call a meeting, distribute a flyer, and initiate “My Solidarity Forum”, anything! Don’t let Teddy Afro perish in the hands of one of the most inhuman administration on the continent of Africa today! We can save him, and we can save Ethiopia – we just need to demonstrate self-respect and pride in ourselves and our heritage!
Friday, April 18, 2008
Teddy Afro released a new song
Teddy Afro, Tedros Kassahun released a new religious song called "HaleLuya". Listen and comment about this music.
Click Here to Listen
Click Here to Listen
Monday, April 7, 2008
The Verdict's In: Paparazzi and Driver To Blame for Princess Di's Death!
It's been officially confirmed.
Jurors in the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed decided Monday that they were "unlawfully killed" by the reckless driving of their chauffeur AND the paparazzi who chased them.
The purpose of the inquest was to determine who died, when, where and how.
Some of the disturbing evidence presented included eyewitness testimony of photographers climbing on to the car in which Diana and Dodi were dying to take photos instead of helping the couple and blood test results that revealed the chauffeur was three times over the French blood alcohol limit.
The six-month hearing into Diana and Dodi's deaths was clouded by conspiracy theories, colourful witnesses and evidence blemished by lies, according to reports.
Monday's decision also firmly puts to an end the many conspiracy theories put forward by Dodi's father, Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed (i.e. that Prince Phillip had them killed so Di couldn't marry Muslim Dodi).
Let them rest in peace now.
Source:perezHilton.com
Jurors in the inquest into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed decided Monday that they were "unlawfully killed" by the reckless driving of their chauffeur AND the paparazzi who chased them.
The purpose of the inquest was to determine who died, when, where and how.
Some of the disturbing evidence presented included eyewitness testimony of photographers climbing on to the car in which Diana and Dodi were dying to take photos instead of helping the couple and blood test results that revealed the chauffeur was three times over the French blood alcohol limit.
The six-month hearing into Diana and Dodi's deaths was clouded by conspiracy theories, colourful witnesses and evidence blemished by lies, according to reports.
Monday's decision also firmly puts to an end the many conspiracy theories put forward by Dodi's father, Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed (i.e. that Prince Phillip had them killed so Di couldn't marry Muslim Dodi).
Let them rest in peace now.
Source:perezHilton.com
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Ethiopia: Millennium Queen Part of World Record
The Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa)
Reigning Millennium Queen Kidan Tesfahun is Ethiopia's representative at Miss Tourism Queen Int. 2008 currently under way in China which concludes on the 12th April 2008.
A record number of delegates from around the World are taking part and this contest now holds the world record with 115 delegates attending this years event thus surpassing even Miss World in popularity.
"Ethiopia's Queen of the Millennium is proudly flying the flag for Ethiopia by taking part in this record breaking event and taking centre stage for Ethiopia," The Ethiopian Life Foundation said in a media statement issued in China.
"Kidan Tesfahun As the reigning Miss Millennium Queen and Ethiopian Goodwill ambassador has also just returned from The Congo where she was specially invited by the first Lady as a special VIP guest at Miss Congo 2008, further demonstrating good will and cultural exchanges between Ethiopia and other countries in the millennium year," it added.
Several delegates from the recently held Miss Tourism of the Millennium Beauty pageant, the first ever International beauty pageant to be held in Ethiopia are ironically also taking part in this same event in China i.e. Miss Bahamas, Miss Congo, Miss Liberia, according to the foundation promoting, and sponsoring, Ethiopian women and girls in the outside world.
Reigning Millennium Queen Kidan Tesfahun is Ethiopia's representative at Miss Tourism Queen Int. 2008 currently under way in China which concludes on the 12th April 2008.
A record number of delegates from around the World are taking part and this contest now holds the world record with 115 delegates attending this years event thus surpassing even Miss World in popularity.
"Ethiopia's Queen of the Millennium is proudly flying the flag for Ethiopia by taking part in this record breaking event and taking centre stage for Ethiopia," The Ethiopian Life Foundation said in a media statement issued in China.
"Kidan Tesfahun As the reigning Miss Millennium Queen and Ethiopian Goodwill ambassador has also just returned from The Congo where she was specially invited by the first Lady as a special VIP guest at Miss Congo 2008, further demonstrating good will and cultural exchanges between Ethiopia and other countries in the millennium year," it added.
Several delegates from the recently held Miss Tourism of the Millennium Beauty pageant, the first ever International beauty pageant to be held in Ethiopia are ironically also taking part in this same event in China i.e. Miss Bahamas, Miss Congo, Miss Liberia, according to the foundation promoting, and sponsoring, Ethiopian women and girls in the outside world.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Ethiopian broke his own record in non-stop laughing
Belachew Girma, an Ethiopian king of laughter, breaks his own world record of non-stop laughing at the 14th World Genius Impossibility Challenger Competition held near Munich, Germany.
Belachew of Ethiopia improved his world record of non-stop laughing to 3 hours and 06 minutes, which was 2 hours and 14 minutes.
Belachew also registered a new world record by running 111 meters carrying 7-kg flower with a flower-case.
The international competition attracted lots of contesters drawn from 13 countries worldwide.
Belachew of Ethiopia improved his world record of non-stop laughing to 3 hours and 06 minutes, which was 2 hours and 14 minutes.
Belachew also registered a new world record by running 111 meters carrying 7-kg flower with a flower-case.
The international competition attracted lots of contesters drawn from 13 countries worldwide.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Ethiopian cowboy film “Kekurbaw Bestejerba” hits screens
By Alemayehu Seife Selassie
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – The Ethiopian cowboy genre copycat film, “Kekurbaw Bestejerba” (“Behind the Curve”), produced and directed by Nebyou Engdawork, started premiering in Addis Ababa Tuesday at the Sebastopol Cinema.
Nebyou Engdawork has acted in the film as Abraham, a character who lost his father – a long distance truck driver – who was killed during a robbery in the countryside. In the film, Abraham grows up without his father and later be becomes a driver for the Ministry of Health.
Driving cross-country, the young man comes across another mugged driver who just lost his brother. The incident reminds Abraham of his dad, leading him to form a partnership with his new friend. The two become vigilantes on the hunt of the killers.
“I wanted to make an adventure film portraying Ethiopian natural elements, such as the forest and horse. This has made our film unique,” the director explains.
“We should not always try to use modern elements in film, such as the fancy cars and beautiful houses. Those are not the things that most of the people in our country have. Ethiopia has the largest number of cattle in Africa, and the tenth largest in the world. That is our true identity,” the director explains.
Despite having no experience, Nebyou took up the art of filmmaking, with which he fell in love when he was a child. The film “Kekurbaw Bestejerba” consumed over 450,000 birr to produce, but the cost would have been much more if it was not for the assistance the director found from close friends. But shooting in the countryside, some 200-300 kilometers away from Addis Ababa, raised the cost. “We bought some six horses, and transporting them was difficult,” the director said. “I grew up watching those Texan films, and horses are really beautiful. Such horses cost in the millions of birr around the world, but here they cost just 3,000 birr each. But the beauty they add to the film is a lot more than that,” he added.
According to Nebiyou the film is based on true events. “There are still people that rob long-distance drivers and passengers, using various curves to stop cars.”
Kekurbaw Bestejerba in a way also shows the harmony of religions in Ethiopia. In the film, the two vigilantes are a Christian and a Muslim. “My character is brought up in the film with a Muslim uncle, though the rest of the family is Christian. So that shows you not only that we can coexist – tolerating each other – but also that we are family,” Nebiyou said.
The production company that released the film is Tatek – the name of the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros’ horse. In the near future, the filmmaker hopes to collect the opinions of viewers and make another Ethiopian film that shows battles fought by horsemen.
After screening at Sebastopol Cinema this week, Kekurbaw Bestejerba will premier at City Hall and Ambassador Cinema. Kekurbaw Bestejerba finished its final editing two months ago and had its official release two months ago, but had to wait for a venue.
25 main actors and over 150 extras took part in the film. With the exception of one actress, the actors are all new to film.
Source: Sub-Saharan Informer
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – The Ethiopian cowboy genre copycat film, “Kekurbaw Bestejerba” (“Behind the Curve”), produced and directed by Nebyou Engdawork, started premiering in Addis Ababa Tuesday at the Sebastopol Cinema.
Nebyou Engdawork has acted in the film as Abraham, a character who lost his father – a long distance truck driver – who was killed during a robbery in the countryside. In the film, Abraham grows up without his father and later be becomes a driver for the Ministry of Health.
Driving cross-country, the young man comes across another mugged driver who just lost his brother. The incident reminds Abraham of his dad, leading him to form a partnership with his new friend. The two become vigilantes on the hunt of the killers.
“I wanted to make an adventure film portraying Ethiopian natural elements, such as the forest and horse. This has made our film unique,” the director explains.
“We should not always try to use modern elements in film, such as the fancy cars and beautiful houses. Those are not the things that most of the people in our country have. Ethiopia has the largest number of cattle in Africa, and the tenth largest in the world. That is our true identity,” the director explains.
Despite having no experience, Nebyou took up the art of filmmaking, with which he fell in love when he was a child. The film “Kekurbaw Bestejerba” consumed over 450,000 birr to produce, but the cost would have been much more if it was not for the assistance the director found from close friends. But shooting in the countryside, some 200-300 kilometers away from Addis Ababa, raised the cost. “We bought some six horses, and transporting them was difficult,” the director said. “I grew up watching those Texan films, and horses are really beautiful. Such horses cost in the millions of birr around the world, but here they cost just 3,000 birr each. But the beauty they add to the film is a lot more than that,” he added.
According to Nebiyou the film is based on true events. “There are still people that rob long-distance drivers and passengers, using various curves to stop cars.”
Kekurbaw Bestejerba in a way also shows the harmony of religions in Ethiopia. In the film, the two vigilantes are a Christian and a Muslim. “My character is brought up in the film with a Muslim uncle, though the rest of the family is Christian. So that shows you not only that we can coexist – tolerating each other – but also that we are family,” Nebiyou said.
The production company that released the film is Tatek – the name of the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros’ horse. In the near future, the filmmaker hopes to collect the opinions of viewers and make another Ethiopian film that shows battles fought by horsemen.
After screening at Sebastopol Cinema this week, Kekurbaw Bestejerba will premier at City Hall and Ambassador Cinema. Kekurbaw Bestejerba finished its final editing two months ago and had its official release two months ago, but had to wait for a venue.
25 main actors and over 150 extras took part in the film. With the exception of one actress, the actors are all new to film.
Source: Sub-Saharan Informer
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Ethiopian artists in Maryland connect to homeland
By Naomi Brookner, The Gazette
The aromas of incense and freshly ground coffee filled the Takoma Park Community Center on Saturday during a reception for the city’s first art exhibit to exclusively showcase local Ethiopian artists.
The exhibit, which will be on display throughout March, features the photography and paintings of four professionals, all originally from Ethiopia, as well as about a dozen Ethiopian students from Piney Branch Elementary School.
Setegn Atenaw plays the mesinko, a violin-like instrument widely played in Ethiopia, for a crowd gathered Saturday. (Photo: Naomi Brookner)
Alice Sims, who organized the exhibit through her Takoma Park-based nonprofit group, Art for the People, said the show was meant to provide an opportunity for cultural exchange between the area’s large Ethiopian population and the community.
Several dozen people attended the reception Saturday, which included an Ethiopian coffee ceremony, Ethiopian food donated by local restaurants, and the music of Setegn Atenaw, who plays the mesinko, a one-string Ethiopian instrument.
Artist Matewos Legesse came dressed in a traditional white shirt, pants and shoes that he said would be worn to formal events in Ethiopia. Legesse contributed several paintings to the exhibit, many depicting women and apples painted in vivid colors.
‘‘The colors of Africa are so bright, very colorful,” said artist Debebe Tesfaye, whose paintings of Ethiopian market scenes also featured vibrant colors, which he said is a reflection of the dress and culture of the east African nation.
Photographer Andarge Asfaw, who came to the United States in 1972 and lives and works in Silver Spring, said he has traveled to five continents, but nothing compares to being able to capture images of his homeland.
Asfaw’s photos at the exhibit were from a trip back to Ethiopia he took in the 1990s and illustrated scenes that included wheat fields, mountains, churches and marketplaces.
‘‘When you travel to a new place, you have no idea what it’s like; you have no understanding of the culture,” he said. ‘‘But when you travel back to a country after 27 years, you can see if it moved backward or forward.”
To Asfaw, Ethiopia has moved backward in one major way. Three decades ago, he said, the country was 80 percent forest, but as nomads cut down trees for cooking and fires, that number is down to 3 percent.
One of Asfaw’s photographs showed an Ethiopian market built around a large tree with far-reaching branches — an image he says is very rare in Ethiopia these days. He said he is trying to use art as a way to alleviate the problem of deforestation, and profits from his recent book will go toward the county-based nonprofit group Trees for the Future.
Tebabu Assefa, a member of the Takoma Park Community Action Group, which co-sponsored the event, said he wanted to give the public a chance to see Ethiopian culture, but also allow local Ethiopians to embrace their own traditions.
‘‘Each community has its own rich history, rich culture, but all of them are busy in life,” said Assefa, who came to the United States from Ethiopia in the 1980s. ‘‘They’re busy assimilating and trying to make art, and they don’t have the opportunity to bring their culture out.”
Next to the main exhibit, in the passageway that leads to the atrium’s main hallway, hangs the art of several Ethiopian students from Piney Branch Elementary School.
Rachna Rikhye, the ESOL teacher at Piney Branch, said she was approached by Sims after collaborating with Art for the People on a previous project. She thought it would be a great way to involve her Ethiopian students, several of whom drew self-portraits for the exhibit.
‘‘The kids really enjoyed themselves and had a very positive experience,” Rikhye said. ‘‘They showed a lot of pride in their culture.”
Asfaw said that kind of community involvement was welcomed by the artists.
‘‘It’s great,” he said. ‘‘You appreciate the community to be able to embrace and appreciate our work and support our causes.”
The aromas of incense and freshly ground coffee filled the Takoma Park Community Center on Saturday during a reception for the city’s first art exhibit to exclusively showcase local Ethiopian artists.
The exhibit, which will be on display throughout March, features the photography and paintings of four professionals, all originally from Ethiopia, as well as about a dozen Ethiopian students from Piney Branch Elementary School.
Setegn Atenaw plays the mesinko, a violin-like instrument widely played in Ethiopia, for a crowd gathered Saturday. (Photo: Naomi Brookner)
Alice Sims, who organized the exhibit through her Takoma Park-based nonprofit group, Art for the People, said the show was meant to provide an opportunity for cultural exchange between the area’s large Ethiopian population and the community.
Several dozen people attended the reception Saturday, which included an Ethiopian coffee ceremony, Ethiopian food donated by local restaurants, and the music of Setegn Atenaw, who plays the mesinko, a one-string Ethiopian instrument.
Artist Matewos Legesse came dressed in a traditional white shirt, pants and shoes that he said would be worn to formal events in Ethiopia. Legesse contributed several paintings to the exhibit, many depicting women and apples painted in vivid colors.
‘‘The colors of Africa are so bright, very colorful,” said artist Debebe Tesfaye, whose paintings of Ethiopian market scenes also featured vibrant colors, which he said is a reflection of the dress and culture of the east African nation.
Photographer Andarge Asfaw, who came to the United States in 1972 and lives and works in Silver Spring, said he has traveled to five continents, but nothing compares to being able to capture images of his homeland.
Asfaw’s photos at the exhibit were from a trip back to Ethiopia he took in the 1990s and illustrated scenes that included wheat fields, mountains, churches and marketplaces.
‘‘When you travel to a new place, you have no idea what it’s like; you have no understanding of the culture,” he said. ‘‘But when you travel back to a country after 27 years, you can see if it moved backward or forward.”
To Asfaw, Ethiopia has moved backward in one major way. Three decades ago, he said, the country was 80 percent forest, but as nomads cut down trees for cooking and fires, that number is down to 3 percent.
One of Asfaw’s photographs showed an Ethiopian market built around a large tree with far-reaching branches — an image he says is very rare in Ethiopia these days. He said he is trying to use art as a way to alleviate the problem of deforestation, and profits from his recent book will go toward the county-based nonprofit group Trees for the Future.
Tebabu Assefa, a member of the Takoma Park Community Action Group, which co-sponsored the event, said he wanted to give the public a chance to see Ethiopian culture, but also allow local Ethiopians to embrace their own traditions.
‘‘Each community has its own rich history, rich culture, but all of them are busy in life,” said Assefa, who came to the United States from Ethiopia in the 1980s. ‘‘They’re busy assimilating and trying to make art, and they don’t have the opportunity to bring their culture out.”
Next to the main exhibit, in the passageway that leads to the atrium’s main hallway, hangs the art of several Ethiopian students from Piney Branch Elementary School.
Rachna Rikhye, the ESOL teacher at Piney Branch, said she was approached by Sims after collaborating with Art for the People on a previous project. She thought it would be a great way to involve her Ethiopian students, several of whom drew self-portraits for the exhibit.
‘‘The kids really enjoyed themselves and had a very positive experience,” Rikhye said. ‘‘They showed a lot of pride in their culture.”
Asfaw said that kind of community involvement was welcomed by the artists.
‘‘It’s great,” he said. ‘‘You appreciate the community to be able to embrace and appreciate our work and support our causes.”
Friday, March 7, 2008
Mulatu Astatke performs at Harvard Univ.
By Corydon Ireland, Harvard News Office
It’s not easy to be a musician in most of the Third World, said legendary Ethiopian composer and musician Mulatu Astatke, who is a 2007-08 Radcliffe Fellow. Music is not typically taught in elementary schools, and in later life, opportunities for musicians are limited by poverty.
In Ethiopia “we have beautiful music, beautiful dance, and in general we have a beautiful culture — but little chance to develop,” said Mulatu (Ethiopians are generally referred to by their first names) in a Feb. 27 presentation.
The slight, soft-spoken composer was at Radcliffe’s 34 Concord Ave. Colloquium Room to give an audience of 70 a primer on Ethiopian contributions to world music — and on his own contributions as a transnational composer. (Mulatu originated a jazz fusion form known as Ethio-jazz. He recently composed music for the soundtrack of director Jim Jarmusch’s 2005 “Broken Flowers.”)
Early on, Mulatu wanted to be an engineer. But he went to high school in North Wales, where a rich arts curriculum allowed him to uncover his talent for music. “I found my calling there,” he said.
Then came more music schooling in London, before Mulatu moved to Boston, where in the late 1950s he was the first African student at the Berklee College of Music — “the only place in that time,” he said, to study jazz.
After further training in New York City, and more than a decade in the West, Mulatu moved back to Ethiopia, where he survived decades of civil war and the vagaries of changing political regimes. Mulatu taught for a living, though he was pressured out of one university job for promoting “imperialist music.” He also pioneered a groundbreaking radio music show in Addis Ababa and traveled frequently into the countryside to perform.
Today, the 67-year-old composer considers part of his musical mission to revive and improve upon the traditional instruments of his country. Modern groups are recording music based on Ethiopian rhythms and musical themes, said Mulatu, but none is reawakening the potential of traditional instruments.
For one, he pioneered the idea of increasing the number of strings on the krar, a bowl-shaped six-string lyre traditionally made of wood, cloth, and beads. He upgraded the instrument — now commonly amplified — to eight strings, then to 12.
If traditional instruments are limited, young players will turn to more versatile Western instruments — and lose a sense of their own culture, said Mulatu. There are ways to alter and improve the old, he said, without compromising the tonal qualities that underlie Ethiopian music.
The composer’s own signature instrument is the vibraphone, a set of graduated aluminum percussion bars that resemble a marimba or a xylophone. In Mulatu’s hands, said Kay Kaufman Shelemay, “the vibraphone becomes the dawal” — the resonant “bell stones” that call the faithful to prayer at Ethiopian churches. (Shelemay, also a Radcliffe Fellow this year, is Harvard’s G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and a professor of African and African American studies.)
After his Western training in music, Mulatu made a study of the complex layering of regional Ethiopian music traditions. It’s “a very diverse and a very [musically] rich country,” said Radcliffe Fellow Steven Kaplan, a professor of African studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At the presentation, he praised Mulatu for delving into lesser-known musical traditions among tribes in southern Ethiopia.
The composer once brought musicians from four different tribes together in an Addis Ababa television studio and orchestrated a cross-tribal fusion performance. Clips from that filming were among the several musical and video interludes played or shown during the Radcliffe event.
To the Western ear and eye, the wind instruments were captivating. They included long trumpetlike wooden horns called malakat and end-blown flutes that each produce one pitch and together a complex melody.
The ideal way “to explore multiple forms” of music, said Mulatu, is through jazz.
Performance opportunities like the one in Addis Ababa also give obscure musicians (many of them farmers) artistic exposure beyond their villages, he said. “These people have been deprived of being heard in the world, or even their own country.”
Performance is also one way of bringing Ethiopian music into the modern age, and to “give identity to modern Ethiopian music,” said Mulatu. “I’ve been writing music here to come up with that identity.” He described the Radcliffe experience — with its opportunities for reflection, collaboration, and composition — as “one of the best years of my life.”
Mulatu is writing music for an electronic opera, and the first section of it will premiere in Harvard’s Sanders Theatre April 14. “The Yared Opera” will blend the old and the new, and incorporate traditional chant texts in Ge’ez, the Ethiopian liturgical language.
Part of the opera score was sneak-previewed on DVD for the Radcliffe audience. It’s based in part on the chant of St. Yared, the founder of Ethiopian church music thought to date back to the sixth century. Mulatu hopes future performances will feature live musicians in concert with the electronic version, and staged at the rock churches of Lalibela, a holy city in northern Ethiopia.
While at Radcliffe, Mulatu is also working on an oral history project with Kaplan and Shelemay. The two scholars have recorded 11 sessions with him so far, including the Feb. 27 presentation. Kaplan and Shelemay sat on either side of him, and alternated asking questions.
The oral history sessions, including DVDs and recordings, will be added to a new collection on Ethiopian musicians in the United States that Shelemay is assembling for the Library of Congress. She called Mulatu an “ambassador” for Ethiopian artistic tradition.
The premiere of the first section of Mulatu Astatke’s ‘The Yared Opera’ is part of a free performance of his works by the Either/Orchestra at 8 p.m. April 14 in the Sanders Theatre. The concert is the final note of an April 13-14 Ethiopian Cultural Creativity Conference at Harvard, which features scholarly presentations on the visual, musical, and literary artistic contributions of the Ethiopian diaspora.
It’s not easy to be a musician in most of the Third World, said legendary Ethiopian composer and musician Mulatu Astatke, who is a 2007-08 Radcliffe Fellow. Music is not typically taught in elementary schools, and in later life, opportunities for musicians are limited by poverty.
In Ethiopia “we have beautiful music, beautiful dance, and in general we have a beautiful culture — but little chance to develop,” said Mulatu (Ethiopians are generally referred to by their first names) in a Feb. 27 presentation.
The slight, soft-spoken composer was at Radcliffe’s 34 Concord Ave. Colloquium Room to give an audience of 70 a primer on Ethiopian contributions to world music — and on his own contributions as a transnational composer. (Mulatu originated a jazz fusion form known as Ethio-jazz. He recently composed music for the soundtrack of director Jim Jarmusch’s 2005 “Broken Flowers.”)
Early on, Mulatu wanted to be an engineer. But he went to high school in North Wales, where a rich arts curriculum allowed him to uncover his talent for music. “I found my calling there,” he said.
Then came more music schooling in London, before Mulatu moved to Boston, where in the late 1950s he was the first African student at the Berklee College of Music — “the only place in that time,” he said, to study jazz.
After further training in New York City, and more than a decade in the West, Mulatu moved back to Ethiopia, where he survived decades of civil war and the vagaries of changing political regimes. Mulatu taught for a living, though he was pressured out of one university job for promoting “imperialist music.” He also pioneered a groundbreaking radio music show in Addis Ababa and traveled frequently into the countryside to perform.
Today, the 67-year-old composer considers part of his musical mission to revive and improve upon the traditional instruments of his country. Modern groups are recording music based on Ethiopian rhythms and musical themes, said Mulatu, but none is reawakening the potential of traditional instruments.
For one, he pioneered the idea of increasing the number of strings on the krar, a bowl-shaped six-string lyre traditionally made of wood, cloth, and beads. He upgraded the instrument — now commonly amplified — to eight strings, then to 12.
If traditional instruments are limited, young players will turn to more versatile Western instruments — and lose a sense of their own culture, said Mulatu. There are ways to alter and improve the old, he said, without compromising the tonal qualities that underlie Ethiopian music.
The composer’s own signature instrument is the vibraphone, a set of graduated aluminum percussion bars that resemble a marimba or a xylophone. In Mulatu’s hands, said Kay Kaufman Shelemay, “the vibraphone becomes the dawal” — the resonant “bell stones” that call the faithful to prayer at Ethiopian churches. (Shelemay, also a Radcliffe Fellow this year, is Harvard’s G. Gordon Watts Professor of Music and a professor of African and African American studies.)
After his Western training in music, Mulatu made a study of the complex layering of regional Ethiopian music traditions. It’s “a very diverse and a very [musically] rich country,” said Radcliffe Fellow Steven Kaplan, a professor of African studies at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. At the presentation, he praised Mulatu for delving into lesser-known musical traditions among tribes in southern Ethiopia.
The composer once brought musicians from four different tribes together in an Addis Ababa television studio and orchestrated a cross-tribal fusion performance. Clips from that filming were among the several musical and video interludes played or shown during the Radcliffe event.
To the Western ear and eye, the wind instruments were captivating. They included long trumpetlike wooden horns called malakat and end-blown flutes that each produce one pitch and together a complex melody.
The ideal way “to explore multiple forms” of music, said Mulatu, is through jazz.
Performance opportunities like the one in Addis Ababa also give obscure musicians (many of them farmers) artistic exposure beyond their villages, he said. “These people have been deprived of being heard in the world, or even their own country.”
Performance is also one way of bringing Ethiopian music into the modern age, and to “give identity to modern Ethiopian music,” said Mulatu. “I’ve been writing music here to come up with that identity.” He described the Radcliffe experience — with its opportunities for reflection, collaboration, and composition — as “one of the best years of my life.”
Mulatu is writing music for an electronic opera, and the first section of it will premiere in Harvard’s Sanders Theatre April 14. “The Yared Opera” will blend the old and the new, and incorporate traditional chant texts in Ge’ez, the Ethiopian liturgical language.
Part of the opera score was sneak-previewed on DVD for the Radcliffe audience. It’s based in part on the chant of St. Yared, the founder of Ethiopian church music thought to date back to the sixth century. Mulatu hopes future performances will feature live musicians in concert with the electronic version, and staged at the rock churches of Lalibela, a holy city in northern Ethiopia.
While at Radcliffe, Mulatu is also working on an oral history project with Kaplan and Shelemay. The two scholars have recorded 11 sessions with him so far, including the Feb. 27 presentation. Kaplan and Shelemay sat on either side of him, and alternated asking questions.
The oral history sessions, including DVDs and recordings, will be added to a new collection on Ethiopian musicians in the United States that Shelemay is assembling for the Library of Congress. She called Mulatu an “ambassador” for Ethiopian artistic tradition.
The premiere of the first section of Mulatu Astatke’s ‘The Yared Opera’ is part of a free performance of his works by the Either/Orchestra at 8 p.m. April 14 in the Sanders Theatre. The concert is the final note of an April 13-14 Ethiopian Cultural Creativity Conference at Harvard, which features scholarly presentations on the visual, musical, and literary artistic contributions of the Ethiopian diaspora.
The World's Richest Black Person is from Ethiopia
Ethiopia born Mohammed Al Amoudi is the World's richest black person with a net worth of $9 Billion. Forbes magazine March 2008 edition puts him at number 97 in the world and the 6th richest person in all of Africa and Middle East.
Forbes wrote "Two of the most noteworthy new entrants are South Africa's Patrice Motsepe and Nigeria's Aliko Dangote, the first black Africans to make their debut among the world's richest. Dangote is also the first-ever Nigerian billionaire." I have no idea what Forbes editors think of Mohamed Al Amoudi who was born and raised in Ethiopia, whose mother is Ethiopian.
By our count of the World Billionaires list from Forbes, Ethiopian born Mohamed Al-Amoudi is the World's Richest Black Person. The second richest black person is Nigeria's Dangote.
So let it be known, the richest Black Person is Ethiopian.
Other Black Billionaires
The second richest black person is Nigerian Aliko Dangote after Ethiopia born Mohamed Al-Amoudi shown below.
Aliko Dangote
And 46 year old South African Patrice Motsepe is the third richest black person
South African Patrice Motsepe
Source: Nazret.com
Forbes wrote "Two of the most noteworthy new entrants are South Africa's Patrice Motsepe and Nigeria's Aliko Dangote, the first black Africans to make their debut among the world's richest. Dangote is also the first-ever Nigerian billionaire." I have no idea what Forbes editors think of Mohamed Al Amoudi who was born and raised in Ethiopia, whose mother is Ethiopian.
By our count of the World Billionaires list from Forbes, Ethiopian born Mohamed Al-Amoudi is the World's Richest Black Person. The second richest black person is Nigeria's Dangote.
So let it be known, the richest Black Person is Ethiopian.
Other Black Billionaires
The second richest black person is Nigerian Aliko Dangote after Ethiopia born Mohamed Al-Amoudi shown below.
Aliko Dangote
And 46 year old South African Patrice Motsepe is the third richest black person
South African Patrice Motsepe
Source: Nazret.com
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
Prominent Artists Engage UNFPA’s ‘Stop Early Marriage’ Campaign
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) organized a canvas painting event at Meskel Square on 7& 8 March 2008 participating Ethiopia’s prominent artists in its campaign under a theme “Stop Early Marriage”.
A painting of a 100 meter canvas, which is the largest piece of painting ever painted in Ethiopia, by 30 of Ethiopia’s prominent artists including Desta Hagos, Alem Teklu, Bekele Mekonen, will be launched at the Square on March 8, the International Women’s Day, commemorated this year under a theme “Investing in Women and Girls”, UNFPA officials disclosed on Monday.
Dr. Monique Rakotomalala, UNFPA Representative to Ethiopia at Hilton said the canvas painting event is one of the major activities forming part of the national campaign entitled “Stop Early Marriage”, which was conceived a few months ago by UNFPA, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Population Council.
more on
A painting of a 100 meter canvas, which is the largest piece of painting ever painted in Ethiopia, by 30 of Ethiopia’s prominent artists including Desta Hagos, Alem Teklu, Bekele Mekonen, will be launched at the Square on March 8, the International Women’s Day, commemorated this year under a theme “Investing in Women and Girls”, UNFPA officials disclosed on Monday.
Dr. Monique Rakotomalala, UNFPA Representative to Ethiopia at Hilton said the canvas painting event is one of the major activities forming part of the national campaign entitled “Stop Early Marriage”, which was conceived a few months ago by UNFPA, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Population Council.
more on
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Ethiopia - Kenenisa stars in controversial documentary film
By Abiy Demilew
Source: Capital
One of the leading athletes of the world, and a multi-record holder, Kenenisa Bekele, has fallen into controversy over a documentary, 'Love…keeps me running,' revolving around the athlete's life.
Abiy Fekyebelu, managing director of Abiy International Film, screenplay writer and co-director of the documentary, told Capital that Kenenisa has stopped the film's premiere, which was scheduled to be screened at the launch of the Ethiopian millennium in September 2007.
According to Abiy, differences started to rise between him and the athlete after the finalization of the documentary a year ago as they couldn't come to common understanding and agreement on how to proceed with the issue of screening the documentary.
"I've only received ETB 150,000 from Kenenisa for production costs including actors' fees," says Abiy. "The film is now in the hands of the athlete for the last year, without any action and us failing to benefit from the work."
According Abiy, production took two years with around 100 actors and others involved including leading athlete Major Haile Gebresellasie, athlete Tariku Bekele, former athlete and currently coach Tolossa Kotu, singer Habtemichael Demisse, actor Yinebeb Tamiru.
Capital's repeated attempts to contact Kenenisa were unsuccessful. However, on February 27, Kenenisa told Amharic weekly The Reporter that the film 'encroaches on his current private life' and that he is dissatisfied with the production quality of the film.
Abiy disclosed to Capital, that the central theme of the movie circles around the athlete and his late wife, Alem Techale
and that everything was done in full agreement with Kenenisa.
"There was no point in Kenenisa's complaint about the quality standard of the film since the entire production was made by a team of professionals from the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) at the Sheraton Hotel," says Abiy.
"After the finalization, we have both invited guests to critique the story and production quality, and we received appreciation for the quality of work we created," Abiy recalled.
"Love…keeps me running", a two hour work, is directed by Lebanese Elie Abi AAD, with Abiy involved as assistant director.
Asked about efforts to solve the dispute through negotiation, Abiy told Capital that he was forced to address the issue in the media after negotiations failed and the athlete resorted to 'verbally threatening me.'
In a letter sealed and signed by Kenenisa and headlined Kenenisa Bekele Trading, Kenenisa solicits the support and cooperation of all concerned bodies to Abiy International Films.
"I've made this movie only out of love and respect of the athlete, not for profit," says Abiy, "But still, I need my rights respected as per the agreement."
Various attempts made to contact Kenenissa remained unsuccessful all through the week.
Capital learned a negotiation effort has been started by unmentioned artists on Saturday, before Capital went for print.
Source: Capital
One of the leading athletes of the world, and a multi-record holder, Kenenisa Bekele, has fallen into controversy over a documentary, 'Love…keeps me running,' revolving around the athlete's life.
Abiy Fekyebelu, managing director of Abiy International Film, screenplay writer and co-director of the documentary, told Capital that Kenenisa has stopped the film's premiere, which was scheduled to be screened at the launch of the Ethiopian millennium in September 2007.
According to Abiy, differences started to rise between him and the athlete after the finalization of the documentary a year ago as they couldn't come to common understanding and agreement on how to proceed with the issue of screening the documentary.
"I've only received ETB 150,000 from Kenenisa for production costs including actors' fees," says Abiy. "The film is now in the hands of the athlete for the last year, without any action and us failing to benefit from the work."
According Abiy, production took two years with around 100 actors and others involved including leading athlete Major Haile Gebresellasie, athlete Tariku Bekele, former athlete and currently coach Tolossa Kotu, singer Habtemichael Demisse, actor Yinebeb Tamiru.
Capital's repeated attempts to contact Kenenisa were unsuccessful. However, on February 27, Kenenisa told Amharic weekly The Reporter that the film 'encroaches on his current private life' and that he is dissatisfied with the production quality of the film.
Abiy disclosed to Capital, that the central theme of the movie circles around the athlete and his late wife, Alem Techale
and that everything was done in full agreement with Kenenisa.
"There was no point in Kenenisa's complaint about the quality standard of the film since the entire production was made by a team of professionals from the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) at the Sheraton Hotel," says Abiy.
"After the finalization, we have both invited guests to critique the story and production quality, and we received appreciation for the quality of work we created," Abiy recalled.
"Love…keeps me running", a two hour work, is directed by Lebanese Elie Abi AAD, with Abiy involved as assistant director.
Asked about efforts to solve the dispute through negotiation, Abiy told Capital that he was forced to address the issue in the media after negotiations failed and the athlete resorted to 'verbally threatening me.'
In a letter sealed and signed by Kenenisa and headlined Kenenisa Bekele Trading, Kenenisa solicits the support and cooperation of all concerned bodies to Abiy International Films.
"I've made this movie only out of love and respect of the athlete, not for profit," says Abiy, "But still, I need my rights respected as per the agreement."
Various attempts made to contact Kenenissa remained unsuccessful all through the week.
Capital learned a negotiation effort has been started by unmentioned artists on Saturday, before Capital went for print.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Traumatic birth, hopeful recovery in Ethiopia
"A Walk to Beautiful," a new documentary opening Friday, focuses on five poor Ethiopian women who have suffered traumatic childbirth injuries.
After enduring sometimes more than a week in labor, these women delivered stillborn babies that left them with obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal that causes incontinence. Abandoned by their husbands, shunned by their families and villages, they live in shame and in hiding.
The film chronicles how their lives change at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, where corrective surgeries have been performed since 1974. The hospital performs 1,200 fistula surgeries a year, free of charge.
More
After enduring sometimes more than a week in labor, these women delivered stillborn babies that left them with obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal that causes incontinence. Abandoned by their husbands, shunned by their families and villages, they live in shame and in hiding.
The film chronicles how their lives change at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, where corrective surgeries have been performed since 1974. The hospital performs 1,200 fistula surgeries a year, free of charge.
More
MERKATO 55 Africa
MERKATO 55 Africa is the emphasis, in both décor and menu, at this restaurant, where handcrafted artifacts surround the ground-floor bar and cafe as well as the second-floor dining room. Andrea Luz Bergquist, the executive chef, will turn out food that promises to be full of exotic touches from other ports of call, too, like the Caribbean and Asia. A glossary to explain menu terms like yassa (a Senegalese marinade) and sosaties (skewered spiced meat) would help. The restaurant will open on Friday without Marcus Samuelsson, its chef and creator, on hand. He is in Stockholm opening a branch of Aquavit: 55 Gansevoort Street (Greenwich Street), (212) 255-8555.
SOUTH GATE Spacious and dappled silver from faceted mirrors, this redo of Café Botanica in the Jumeirah Essex House, opening Friday, offers generous views of Central Park and hearty contemporary American fare like braised and roasted rib of beef from the kitchen of Kerry Heffernan: 154 Central Park South, (212) 484-5120.
GALLO NERO This Italian wine bar features cured meats and antipasti: 404 West 44th Street, (212) 265-6660.
ISLERO A narrow space made welcoming with dark wood and marble tabletops is the setting for Spanish food interpreted by Jessica Floyd. It opens today: 247 East 50th Street, (212) 752-1414.
MAMA’S MUDSLIDERS In the space that had been Li-Lac chocolates, Hali Horn, a pastry chef from Los Angeles, will turn out her versions of retro desserts, including a mud pie and frozen s’mores, and some savories, like cheese plates: 120 Christopher Street (Bleecker Street), (646) 414-4447.
PATA NEGRA Rafael Mateo has carved out a niche of Spain with his East Village wine bar, which opens on Friday: 345 East 12th Street, (212) 228-1696.
PINCH & S’MAC Pinch Pizza by the Inch, which closed, has teamed with S’mac and Ark Restaurants in this cafe that opened on Monday in the old Columbus Bakery: 474 Columbus Avenue (83rd Street), (646) 438-9494.
Looking Ahead
In late summer, Andrew and Jonathan Schnipper, the founders and former owners of the Hale and Hearty Soup chain, will open a casual restaurant, as yet unnamed, in The New York Times Building at the southeast corner of 41st Street and Eighth Avenue.
SOUTH GATE Spacious and dappled silver from faceted mirrors, this redo of Café Botanica in the Jumeirah Essex House, opening Friday, offers generous views of Central Park and hearty contemporary American fare like braised and roasted rib of beef from the kitchen of Kerry Heffernan: 154 Central Park South, (212) 484-5120.
GALLO NERO This Italian wine bar features cured meats and antipasti: 404 West 44th Street, (212) 265-6660.
ISLERO A narrow space made welcoming with dark wood and marble tabletops is the setting for Spanish food interpreted by Jessica Floyd. It opens today: 247 East 50th Street, (212) 752-1414.
MAMA’S MUDSLIDERS In the space that had been Li-Lac chocolates, Hali Horn, a pastry chef from Los Angeles, will turn out her versions of retro desserts, including a mud pie and frozen s’mores, and some savories, like cheese plates: 120 Christopher Street (Bleecker Street), (646) 414-4447.
PATA NEGRA Rafael Mateo has carved out a niche of Spain with his East Village wine bar, which opens on Friday: 345 East 12th Street, (212) 228-1696.
PINCH & S’MAC Pinch Pizza by the Inch, which closed, has teamed with S’mac and Ark Restaurants in this cafe that opened on Monday in the old Columbus Bakery: 474 Columbus Avenue (83rd Street), (646) 438-9494.
Looking Ahead
In late summer, Andrew and Jonathan Schnipper, the founders and former owners of the Hale and Hearty Soup chain, will open a casual restaurant, as yet unnamed, in The New York Times Building at the southeast corner of 41st Street and Eighth Avenue.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
'Ethiopian Idol' TV show coming soon on ETN
Source:Ethiopianreview.com
The Washington DC-based Ethiopian Television Network will air a new show named "Ethiopian Idol." Watch the video announcement below. For more information, visit ouretn.com.
The Washington DC-based Ethiopian Television Network will air a new show named "Ethiopian Idol." Watch the video announcement below. For more information, visit ouretn.com.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Actress Suvari On Visit Here As Goodwill Ambassador
Award wining American actress Mena Suvari is visiting Ethiopia in a sign of supporting a US-based foundation forwhich she is goodwill ambassador.
The actress is actively supporting the African Medical and Research Foundation-AMREF's programs which focus on Africa's most critical health issues, particularly those issues that affect women and children.
"I am rally pleased to be associated with AMREF-which is the largest health development organization based in Africa and run by Africans," Ms. Suvari told a press conference at the Edna Mall late on Tuesday.
"I also promise to strengthen collaboration to help African lower status people" she added with tears on her eyes.
The renowned actress is visiting the country from 10 to 16 February, 2008, in a program AMREF organized in association with the Addis Ababa Millennium Secretarial office to relate her visit to Ethiopia to the celebration of the Ethiopian Millennium.
On Monday, actress Suvari met and held discussion with Mayor Berhane Deressa At Edna Mall, a multi complex building which also houses a state-of the-art cinema hall the actress shared to the audience about her works and her personal life experience.
Ms. Suvari, who started her career as a child model, has become one of the most sought after young actresses in Hollywood.
Her extensive film credit include staring in the Academy Award wining American Beauty, American Pie, Spun, Factory Girl and, most recently, the critically acclaimed film stuck opposite Stephen Rea.
AMREF was founded in as the Flying Doctors of East Africa.
Today, AMREF is the largest health development organization based in Africa where 7% of staff is health to escape poverty infrastructure in Africa by closing the gap between the formal health system and communities who need health care services.
AM REF focus on the most critical health issues facing the continent: HIV/AIDS and TB, Malaria, clean water and basic sanitation, family and reproductive health, training health workers and clinical and surgical outreach.
The actress is actively supporting the African Medical and Research Foundation-AMREF's programs which focus on Africa's most critical health issues, particularly those issues that affect women and children.
"I am rally pleased to be associated with AMREF-which is the largest health development organization based in Africa and run by Africans," Ms. Suvari told a press conference at the Edna Mall late on Tuesday.
"I also promise to strengthen collaboration to help African lower status people" she added with tears on her eyes.
The renowned actress is visiting the country from 10 to 16 February, 2008, in a program AMREF organized in association with the Addis Ababa Millennium Secretarial office to relate her visit to Ethiopia to the celebration of the Ethiopian Millennium.
On Monday, actress Suvari met and held discussion with Mayor Berhane Deressa At Edna Mall, a multi complex building which also houses a state-of the-art cinema hall the actress shared to the audience about her works and her personal life experience.
Ms. Suvari, who started her career as a child model, has become one of the most sought after young actresses in Hollywood.
Her extensive film credit include staring in the Academy Award wining American Beauty, American Pie, Spun, Factory Girl and, most recently, the critically acclaimed film stuck opposite Stephen Rea.
AMREF was founded in as the Flying Doctors of East Africa.
Today, AMREF is the largest health development organization based in Africa where 7% of staff is health to escape poverty infrastructure in Africa by closing the gap between the formal health system and communities who need health care services.
AM REF focus on the most critical health issues facing the continent: HIV/AIDS and TB, Malaria, clean water and basic sanitation, family and reproductive health, training health workers and clinical and surgical outreach.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
A Walk to Beautiful - a film about Ethiopian women suffering from childbirth injuries
"A Walk to Beautiful" is an inspiring documentary film that tells the heartbreaking story of five Ethiopian women who suffer from devastating childbirth injuries. Rejected by their husbands and ostracized by their communities, these women are left to spend the rest of their lives in loneliness and shame. Instead they make the long and arduous journey to Fistula Hospital in Addis Abba where they reclaim their lost dignity. The trials they endure–and their attempts to rebuild their lives–tell a universal story of hope, courage, and transformation. (Running time: 1:25). In English, Amharic, and Oromiffa with English subtitles.
A Walk to Beautiful is now showing at the Quad Theatre near New York University. The following is short trailer of the film.
A Walk to Beautiful is now showing at the Quad Theatre near New York University. The following is short trailer of the film.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Liya launched a line of children’s clothes
Liya Kebede is one busy woman: The mother of two is a model, an actor, an activist, and a goodwill ambassador. Oh, and she’s just getting her feet wet creating a line of children’s clothes.
One of Liya Kebede’s proudest achievements came in the mail. Among the bills and catalogs was an envelope with designs for the tags to be sewn into every garment made by Lemlem, her new children’s-wear line. And there, in plain letters, were three little words that amounted to one big triumph: made in Ethiopia.
Bear in mind, the Addis Ababa native—who now lives in Manhattan with her husband, Kassy; their 7-year-old son, Suhul; and their 2-year-old daughter, Raee—has bragging rights to a few other accomplishments: In addition to being a top model (she first made a name for herself in 2000 on the Milan runways) and an actress, she was named a World Health Organization goodwill ambassador in 2005 for raising awareness of health risks to mothers and children in the developing world. In 2006, she launched the Liya Kebede Foundation (for which she received our Smart Cookie Award last April) to address the same concerns.
More on addisportal.com
One of Liya Kebede’s proudest achievements came in the mail. Among the bills and catalogs was an envelope with designs for the tags to be sewn into every garment made by Lemlem, her new children’s-wear line. And there, in plain letters, were three little words that amounted to one big triumph: made in Ethiopia.
Bear in mind, the Addis Ababa native—who now lives in Manhattan with her husband, Kassy; their 7-year-old son, Suhul; and their 2-year-old daughter, Raee—has bragging rights to a few other accomplishments: In addition to being a top model (she first made a name for herself in 2000 on the Milan runways) and an actress, she was named a World Health Organization goodwill ambassador in 2005 for raising awareness of health risks to mothers and children in the developing world. In 2006, she launched the Liya Kebede Foundation (for which she received our Smart Cookie Award last April) to address the same concerns.
More on addisportal.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
