THE MILLENNIUM FACE OF ETHIOPIA

THE GIFT OF LUCY AND THE GENERATION OF PEACE

Dr. Ahmed A. Moen,  Associate  Professor of Global Health,  Allied Health Sciences and Management  in Howard University, Washington, D.C and one of the Elders’ Committee for Peace,  and founding Members of the Peace and Development Committee in Ethiopia.

Annual Dinners for Recognitions and Awards. At the annual dinner every May SEED recognizes and awards individual Ethiopians in Diaspora and from Ethiopia for the productive roles in society, their communities, and families. In addition to Ethiopian professionals the list of awardees include High School, University and College Graduates who have shown outstanding achievements in their classes. This Annual Award Dinners has been held annually since May of 1994. The admission fees to these dinners are determined every year to cover the costs involved in preparing the Annual Dinner. The nominations and selections of the awardees are conducted through regular and electronic mail where thousands of Ethiopians in Diaspora and from the home country participate.

These annual award and recognitions serve as a platform to motivate Ethiopians in Diaspora by encouraging them to strive for excellence and to enable them to be productive model citizens where they are. This activity has created a network of professionals and young Ethiopians that has started bearing fruit in job searches, career consultations, and business creations through partnership.

The Quarterly Newsletter. A Quarterly publication to enlighten the American and Western community, including the Ethiopians in Diaspora, by providing useful information about Ethiopia. This publication will present Ethiopia’s abundant natural and human resources, economic potential and the reasons for its underdevelopment. It will invite prominent Ethiopians, friends of Ethiopia and experts to provide manuscripts that teach and encourage readers to participate in Ethiopia’s economic, cultural and historic events. The main publication will be issued in a magazine format in May preceding the SEED Annual Dinner. The other three issues will be published as newsletters and distributed in August, November and February.

The Online Interactive Database. Due to SEED’s Annual Dinners conducted without any interruption since 1994, it has accumulated a good number of profiles on Ethiopian-American business, professional individuals and students. The database has been online since October 2003 for all Ethiopian-Americans and the general public to use it. This multi-faceted interactive database has many uses: for posting resumes for jobs, for locating individuals and businesses, and for career and education consultation and planning. The database will also be a repository for various educational tools: Articles on Ethiopian history, geography, and an inventory of mineral resources and teaching materials for learning the major languages of Ethiopia – to name only a few of its uses. It will also serve as a repository for researched works of professional Ethiopians on food security, HIV AIDS, and many other important information that will serve both as educational as well as a very useful information resource for those who contemplate investing in Ethiopia. We also expect to have incidental revenues related to this activity. If the revenue is to come from using the resources of the database the charge will be based on cost.