Day 4: Friday (11/15)

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Friday, 11/15: Today was my first visit to SLTSSA (Sign Language Training and Social Service Association) and the Makanisa School for the Deaf. And wow I learned a lot. We started off by going to Makanisa's Chapel service. I couldn't understand anything as the message was in Amharic, but I did pick up on a few signs. The Makanisa School is now an inclusive school, which means that it has both deaf and hearing students. I learned that it is very important for deaf students to learn how to integrate and communicate with hearing students and people, and it is also very good that hearing students learn how to sign so they can communicate with the deaf population.

School and SLTSSA Entrance (from the inside of the compound.

However, most of my day today was spent with SLTSSA. I meet Demere, one of the founders of SLTSSA who is the Vice President of the Board. But, I spent most of my time interviewing and learning from the Manager of SLTSSA. In the States the title Manager might not sound very exciting, but in Ethiopia the Managers are the ones that are appointed to run the organization. His name is Fikremarcus Admasu. I learned so much from him today. Not only about SLTSSA, but about Ethiopia's government structure in relations to charities. I will try to summarize what I learned because I think it's very interesting.

Fikremarcus, Manager of SLTSSA

The government has a Charities and Societies Agency, and within the agency, there are two different types of organization you can be: either an Ethiopian Charity or an Ethiopian Residential Charity. Ethiopian Charities focus on advocacy, rights, laws, and the political system. These organizations must be funded internally within the country with no more than 10% coming from outside of Ethiopia. (I can imagine this would be very difficult.) SLTSSA falls under the other type of organization, the Ethiopian Residential Charity. These types of charities focus on development, infrastructure, educational resources, logistics, and health support. They are about providing resources such as teachers for schools, supplies, and support. They are not focused on advocacy. And these organizations can be funded by organizations and countries outside of the country (and there's no limit). I think this is one reason why SLTSSA is an Ethiopian Residential Charity, since they are funding 100% by an foundation in Denmark (Essy International, which I could be completely spelling incorrectly.. please don't quote me on that). Even though SLTSSA does a lot of advocacy and awareness they do it in a way that isn't directly advocating themselves, since they are technically not allowed to. They must stay within the bylaws set for an Ethiopian Residential Charity (just as Ethiopian Charities have their own set of bylaws, rules, and regulations.)

Another thing I learned that I thought was really interesting was how charities or organizations are formed here. When people have similar interests about an issue they form interest groups. So lets say I was really interested in children's education, by word of mouth, I would find other people with the same interest. There are many different interest groups that exist. Then these interest groups register legally to become a General Assembly. The people most interested and passionate about the issue are the founders. They discuss and create a vision for what they want to see changed within the issue the care about. And in order to put the vision that they have into action they elect a board. These 5-7 people discuss a way to make the vision come to action by creating an organization that the board oversees. They are the ones that appoint (through interviews and applications) a Manager to oversee the activities of the organization. This is unlike the States where someone has a vision for change and then decides to create a non-profit organization or social enterprise. They usually find a board of directors after they’ve had the vision for the organization. In Ethiopia for charities, organizations are formed because of interest groups and Boards. This method makes a lot of sense to me, because it gathers together like minded people to discuss how they can accomplish their shared vision (as a community). In the United States, because of our process and method, we have a lot of similar organizations doing similar things.  

However, I can see some areas where this might be challenging. The board choses the manager, but since the vision comes from the board, but the manager really overseas and coordinate the organization's activities, the board must choose the manager very wisely and clearly communicate their vision. The board, similar to the states, is comprised of unpaid volunteers. The board also helps the manager take on some of the responsibilities and task, however, sometimes this is difficult as the board members are very busy and have their own jobs. Sometimes they aren't able to help as much as wanted (which also happens in the states). But what I gathered is that the Board does more than just oversea and give guidance, they are suppose to be more involved. I found this whole process to be very interesting and in my mind even further confirm the importance of community within the Ethiopian culture, where people with similar interests come together to figure out ways to make a difference in the community.

(Much more was learned today... See my next post to learn about SLTSSA)