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If you are a young woman aged between 16 and 21, wherever you are in the world, you can apply to join a three-month online leadership development program designed to give you a head start on your life’s journey. The EveryonesWorld Leadership Foundation program (ELF) is a dream come true for its founder, Yene Assegid (PhD) who wants to give the tools to realise your ambitions and learn how to lead effectively. Ethiopian-born Assegid will teach the key insights from the over 20 years she has presented leadership training around the world. Raised in Belgium, Yene Assegid completed her university studies –– from Bachelor degree to PhD –– in the United States of America. She holds the level of Master Certified Coach (MCC) with the International Coaching Federation (ICF), a credential held by only five percent of ICF members worldwide. Fluent in English, French and Amharic, with conversational German, KRIO, Spanish and Mandarin, Yene Assegid has worked in a wide variety of cultures, training executives, managers and individuals in private companies and civil society organisations as well for European Union and United Nations’ agencies. The ELF program is the culmination of her long-held goal to create a leadership program entirely for young women. Now it is here, and open for applications from 15 September for the first intake in January 2021. Only 100 Founder Members will be accepted as participants in the inaugural course and the intake will build up to 200 each in the second and third intakes of 2021. She talked to Capital about her programme. Excerpts;

Capital: Can you tell us about The EveryonesWorld Leadership Foundation program (ELF)?
Yene Assegid: ELF is the only global online Leadership Development Program dedicated to young women aged between 16 and 21. It is designed and delivered by seasoned coaches and leadership practitioners. Each course is three months long and there will be three in a year. The ELF program aims to help young women discover their own expression of leadership and learn to apply it. They will learn competences such as emotional intelligence, conflict management, time management and be given the opportunity to explore their life’s vision, to reflect on their life’s purpose and engage in an intentional life path.
All the learning in lectures, coaching and in peer group discussions will be framed by the four pillars of self-responsibility, environmental responsibility, social responsibility and financial responsibility.
ELF will provide a space where young women – along with their peers from around the world, will be able to harness their own potential and evolve in accordance with their own vision of their lives.
The ELF Program will also support young women to expand their career and professional paths by holding regular talks with various guest speakers who will share about their own life paths, the challenges they faced, and what keeps them motivated.

Capital: What are the benefits of joining this training?
Yene Assegid: The ELF program is a space where young women will be nurtured and developed; they will be introduced to leadership development, professional coaching and will be exposed to other cultures and individuals from around the world.

Capital: Why do you limit the number of participants to 100? Do you have plans to increase the number of girls that participate in the programme?
Yene Assegid: The first intake in January 2021 is the inaugural cohort; we call those participants Founding Members. They will be pioneers in a brand new program which will certainly grow course by course. Our Founding Members will always be the ones that new participants look to for guidance and inspiration as they embark on the journey.

Capital: You said the age limit is from 16 to 21, why only this?
Yene Assegid: We want to have young women who are between the age of finishing secondary school and before finishing college. This is a very special age and we feel that if we can equip young women at this age with leadership skills, it will have the most impact. I am sure all of us, at some point, have wished that at that age we were given better guidance about our futures, and more practical wisdom to help us tackle those tricky years of moving from one phase of our lives into the next. It will be a bit like being taken aside by older, successful women who will tell you what they wished they had been told at that age.

Capital: Do you have any plan to reach girls in sub-Saharan Africa who do not have access to Internet or smart devices?
Yene Assegid: The program is fully online and is available to all young women everywhere. It is a requirement to have Internet access. Part of the reason why we are developing a scholarship system is to assist participants who are unable to pay the tuition fee and may need some help in Internet access. It is our dream to have the funding for at least 50% of the participants and we are encouraging corporates and other donors to become involved by sponsoring groups of participants, Platinum sponsors will cover the fees of 75 and above participants; Gold sponsors between 50 and 75; Silver between 25 and 49 and Bronze between 10 and 24. Ideally there will be sponsors who will be able to add some extra funds for certain participants to have Internet access. We are reaching out to certain companies in different regions with this in mind.

THE ART OF NEW YEAR

Discourse with Dr, Desta

September 14, 2020

“History teaches us that unity is strength and cautions us to submerge and overcome our differences in the quest for common goals…”

H.I.M. Emperor Haile Selassie I

MELKAM ENKUTATASH dear avid readers! It’s 2013…finally. And though we haven’t completed the Julian calendar year of 2020, the Ethiopian New Year gives us a glimmer of hope on the horizon and the possibility of a new cycle in which we can rise stronger and certainly cleaner than we were last year this time, considering the copious amounts of hand sanitizer and washing we’re doing. This actually is one thing I hope we resolve to continuing. To ‘wash hands’ is a metaphor I first heard as a child, growing up in the Catholic religion, about Pontius Pilot who infamously “washed his hands” of the destiny of Yeshua the Christ. Basically, the idiom refers to releasing one’s self of all responsibility in a particular issue. While we want to continue washing, the figure of speech is diametrically opposed to the popular western New Year’s resolution.
According to historical accounts, over 4,000 years ago the ancient Babylonians were the first to engage in making New Year’s resolutions, mid-March, the time for planting crops. Akitu was their 12-day religious festival where a new king would be crowned or loyalty to the reigning king would be reaffirmed. Promises would be made to their gods to satisfy debts and settle outstanding issues with the hope that their gods would in turn grant them favor. No one wanted the volcano god for instance to erupt due to an unpaid bill, not to mention avoiding foreclosure on your ziggurat centered sandstone home.
Romans followed suit after their emperor, Julius Caesar, tweaked the calendar claiming January 1 as the beginning of the new year circa 46 B.C. January was an homage to Janus, the two-faced god whose domain was doorways and arches. Naturally, good ole Roman sacrifices were offered in exchange for deals of good conduct for the coming year. I wonder what was “good conduct” considering the Pontius Pilot washing of the hands and well-known Roman debauchery, but that’s another story. This practice would become a mainstay in Europe and an official practice by 1740 when founder of the Methodist religion, English clergyman John Wesley, created the Covenant Renewal Service. This event was mostly held on New Year’s Eve commonly called “watch night” which included prayer services to reaffirm faith and conviction. Now popular in evangelical Protestant churches, particularly in African-American denominations, watch night services are held with congregants praying and making resolutions for the coming year throughout the night. Despite the religious root of resolutions, statistics say 45 percent of Americans make New Year’s resolutions, of which 8 percent fulfill. Yes, Americans poll everything, but THAT’s another story.
Ethiopian traditions for the New Year are just incredible, inviting and invigorating. The early morning sights, smells and sounds regardless of one’s faith or lack thereof, are best distinguished as family time. As the buna boils creating an aroma that is best enjoyed with eyes closed for a moment; and while the wots simmer creating a mouth-watering reaction leading to an internal discussion between eyes and stomach as to serving size; and as the Elders enter so elegantly in national dress, wearing classical white shamas bordered with the bandera, red gold and green…OMG…it is beyond awesome. It is the warmest most genuine and loving holiday of the year when your faith, social status, and any other demographic matters not, and we share. We share hope, we share food, we share laughs, we share all the good news of the sefer as we give thanks for living to see a new year.
I will miss being home this year, as I am in the USA with family for an unexpected visit. But I will not miss many of the aforementioned as this Kingston born Kazanches Sistar travels like any other Ethiopian mama, with overweight bags filled with berberi, shiro and mitmita to prepare our family feast in Florida. You see, it’s extremely important to be in a space where you feel safe, strong and solid, my Ethiopia. But sometimes it’s about simply about being. I would be disingenuous to say what I “learnt” in this 2012/2020 cycle. Its more about what I choose to reinforce which is the importance of family and how no matter the time, space or circumstance we must strengthen our sense of loyalty and commitment to being better and rising to a standard which we have never known before.
Qadamawi Haile Selassie said, “History teaches us that unity is strength and cautions us to submerge and overcome our differences in the quest for common goals…” The human family has been pushed to every imaginable limit from Accra to Addis, Cape to Cairo, Zurich to Zanzibar, no one has been spared. So it’s my prayer for 2013 that Ethiopians, wherever we may be, resolve that 2013 will be ‘our year’, a year of healing, a year of humility, a year of listening, a year of courage, a year of creativity, a year of power, a year of support, a year of productivity and year of prosperity… a year of unconditional love that provides for patience ensuring Ethiopia’s protection; promoting all constructive possibilities. From my lips to Jah’s ears, I wish ALL Ethiopians Melkam Enkutatahs!

Dr. Desta Meghoo is a Jamaican born
Creative Consultant, Curator and cultural promoter based in Ethiopia since 2005. She also serves as Liaison to the AU for the Ghana based, Diaspora African Forum.

The parallel between President Bolsonaro and President Trump

Business & Economy

September 14, 2020

There are two types of twins – identical and fraternal. One fertilized egg splits and develops two babies with exactly the same genetic information to form identical twins. They differ from fraternal twins, where two eggs are fertilized by two sperm and produce two genetically unique children. They are no more alike than individual siblings born at different times.
Cesar Chelala, a global Health Consultant sarcastically but strongly argued that he has powerful reasons to believe that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and United States President Donald Trump are fraternal twins. Although many people may question this assumption, Cesar Chelala stressed that he cannot find any other plausible explanation for why President Bolsonaro so closely follows President Trump’s script, even though President Trump clearly is ahead of him in terms of brutally stirring domestic unrest.
According to Cesar Chelala, their “twinship” is manifested on how both leaders have responded to the coronavirus pandemic, showing their insensitivity and ignorance. As an example, discounting the dangers of the epidemic and anxious for approval, both presidents meet their supporters without wearing masks and brushing aside the basic principle of interpersonal distancing to avoid contagion. They also act oblivious to the fact that even asymptomatic persons can be contagious, something impossible to know just by looking at them. And this happens as both in the United States and in Brazil the pandemic carves its course unrelentingly.
Dr. Robert Dalton of Leeds University stated that in a clear disregard for what medical experts say, both President Bolsonaro and President Trump have promoted the use of hydroxychloroquine to prevent or treat COVID 19. President Bolsonaro recommends the use of the drug to his supporters, insisting he keeps a box in hand should his 93-year-old mother need it. Trump, without any scientific evidence, prides himself on having taken the drug to prevent the infection. At the end of May 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) suspended the international trial of hydroxychloroquine. The international agency had concerns that it provokes a “significantly higher risk of death” compared to patients who didn’t receive the drug, according to a study published in the medical journal the Lancet.
Dr. Robert Dalton further noted that this is happening as Brazil continues to be one of the countries most affected by the coronavirus pandemic worldwide. On May 26, Brazil reported 1,039 deaths while the United States reported 592. Until very recently, the United States reports over 100,000 deaths and more than 1.7 million people infected. These figures are likely to be an underestimate, since public health experts estimate that the actual figures on the pandemic in Brazil are 15 times higher than those officially released.
Cesar Chelala stressed that the coronavirus pandemic, like few other events worldwide, has clearly exposed the best and the worse in people. The best, because it has shown the heroic work of hundreds of thousands of health workers who, risking their own lives and in many cases without basic protective equipment, have saved millions of people from dying of a deadly infection. The worse, because leaders like President Bolsonaro and President Trump, with their cavalier attitude towards the pandemic, have unnecessarily put millions of citizens at risk.
According to Cesar Chelala, the Trump administration has sealed the border to immigrants and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) continues to deport thousands of migrants held in detention centers. Many among those who have been sent back to their countries are infected with the coronavirus. Guatemala’s health minister, Hugo Monroy, said, “The United States has become the Wuhan of the Americas.” Amnesty International USA has called on the Department of Homeland Security to place a moratorium on deportations.
Both in Brazil and in the United States, the number of infected people continues to increase rapidly. Sᾶo Paulo, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, has become a hot center of the pandemic, and hospitals are overwhelmed. According to a study conducted at London’s Imperial College, Brazil has now the most cases and deaths in Latin America, and is the country with the highest rate of transmission. The infection is reaching indigenous communities living in remote areas of the Amazon rainforest and is starting to spread in the favelas, marginal areas in Rio de Janeiro and home to approximately 13 million people. “Yet, perhaps the biggest threat to Brazil’s COVID-19 response is its president, Jair Bolsonaro,” stated an editorial in the Lancet.
In 2019, Human Rights Watch denounced how indigenous people in Brazil who had organized themselves to defend their land had been attacked and murdered by people involved in illegal deforestation. Since assuming power, Bolsonaro has scaled back environmental protections and disregarded indigenous people’s rights. In March 2020, several NGOs reported Bolsonaro to the UN Commission on Human Rights for encouraging indigenous genocide. Traditional indigenous lifestyles, he declared in 2019, were akin to “prehistoric men.”
“Bolsonaro’s personality is extremely ill-suited to a pandemic. He can’t unite the country, because his whole modus operandi is based on sowing division,” said Gustavo Ribeiro, founder of The Brazilian Report, a politics site in Brazil. Exactly the same words could be applied to Donald Trump, who has incited people to rebel against the lockdown imposed by the authorities of several states in the United States.
Following nation-wide protests against the police killing of George Floyd, President Trump called Minneapolis demonstrators “thugs” and threatened to send the United States military with a green light to open fire on those who steal goods or damage property. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!” Trump tweeted. This irresponsible comment was widely condemned.
President Trump’s actions led Physicians for Human Rights USA state, “While the deaths of Black people at the hands of police is a centuries-long phenomenon, the current United States president is actively fueling discord and intolerance. A true leader would offer empathy and strive to help heal the nation. Time and time again, President Trump instead has opted to heighten divisions and inflame hatred and distrust.”
Given these circumstances and the great variability of manifestations of the coronavirus, it is impossible to predict what will happen in the coming months and for how long we will have to deal with the effects of this pandemic. During an interview with Fox News’s Jeanine Pirro, Eric Trump, who is a mouthpiece for his father, suggested that the Democrats were using the pandemic to undermine his father’s popularity. “And guess what, after November 3, coronavirus will magically, all of a sudden, go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen,” said Eric Trump, the president’s son. Only people of a callous nature can deny the horrendous impact of this terrible pandemic.