If you happen to be Eritrean visiting Kansas City and had not read this article, there is probably no way you would realise that over the past twenty years or so, an Eritrean engineer has had some say in its growth and transformation as a beautiful city. Kansas, nicknamed the City of Fountains, boasts over 200 fountains spread throughout its parks and boulevards – its status as the city with the most fountains is only surpassed by Rome. And talking about boulevards, the city is also known as the Paris of the Plains because it has almost as many thoroughfares as Paris and comes complete with the Rosedale Arch, a replica of the Arc de Triomphe. And one of the most recent additions to the beauty of Kansas is the Riverfront Park situated along the banks of the Missouri river, designed by Taliaferro and Browne, a company co-owned by Hagos E. Andebrahan.

Taliaferro and Browne is a top practice ranked high up on the food chain as far as engineering firms go. Perched at the driving seat are Hagos E. Andebrahan, CEO and Leonard Graham, president. In 1992, both men bought the company following the death of Will Taliaferro, owner of the firm bearing his name.

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Since its establishment in 2007, La Diosa, a chic jewellery business based in London, has racked up quite a reputation in the world of fashion. La Diosa is now worn by the likes of Sarah Brown, wife of former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Leona Lewis, Baroness Amos, Kelly Rowland, Kim Cattrall from Sex and the City and other celebrities. Here, Simon Haile speaks to the brains of the outfit – Natasha Faith and Semhal Zemikael. The two girls travelled around the world in search of inspiration for their business and found it in the Mayan ruins of Mexico and thereafter, La Diosa was born.

SH: So how about your background – school, upbringing

Natasha Faith: I was born in Uganda and came to London at the age of three after my father, John Muwanga, passed away. My father was a well known up and coming fashion designer in Kampala and I would say that I gained much of my innate creativity from him.

I grew up in East London with my wonderful mother Edith, who has always made me feel grounded and independent. Growing up within humble settings can almost make you feel that you deserve to become a product of your environment. I made a choice. I wanted to be successful.

Semhal Zemikael: I was born and raised in East London. My parents, who are still married, met whilst studying in London in the 70s. My father is from Eritrea and my mother from Ethiopia. I have an older brother and we are a close family.

Despite the conflict between these two countries I love the true beauty of them both. The generosity that is found in these people is very humbling. My parents have worked hard all their lives and have instilled in me the importance of a strong family, gaining respect and achieving your dream. My mother run a business in Ethiopia at the age of 18 and her determination and work ethic is very inspiring to me.

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A Chadian film director who lives and works in France (Haroun) returns home upon the death of his mother. He is shocked at the degraded state of the country and the national cinema. Encountering skepticism from his family members about his chosen career, Haroun tries to defend himself by quoting Jean-Luc Godard: “The cinema creates memories.” The filmmaker decides to make a film dedicated to his mother entitled Bye Bye Africa but immediately encounters major problems. Cinemas have closed and financing is impossible to secure. The director reunites with an old girlfriend (Yelena), who was shunned by Chadians who could not distinguish between film and reality after appearing in one of his previous films as an HIV victim. Haroun learns about the destruction of the African cinema from directors in neighboring countries, but also finds Issa Serge Coelo shooting his first film, Daressalam. Things go badly and, convinced that it is impossible to make films in Africa, Haroun departs Chad in despair, leaving his film camera to a young boy who had been assisting him.

***

Come Back, Africa is the second feature-length film written, produced, and directed by American independent filmmaker Lionel Rogosin. The film had a profound effect on African Cinema, and remains of great historical and cultural importance as a document preserving the unique heritage of the townships in South Africa in the 1950’s.

This story of a Zulu family is a composite story of events enacted by Africans whose experiences resembled the story’s events. Forced out of his village by famine, Zachariah leaves his family to take the only work available: in the gold mines near Johannesburg. Seeking better than a slave wage, he settles with his wife and children in a bleak room in a crumbling shack on the outskirts of the city. Here he confronts the pass laws – hundreds of laws which he did not know existed- restricting his every move: he cannot find work without a pass, and he cannot get a pass without work. At the same time he is constantly threatened with banishment or imprisonment if he is unemployed too long, or fails to comply with petty restrictions. Zachariah drifts through a succession of jobs- domestic servant, garage attendant, waiter, road gang laborer- tormented, insulted, and degraded by white employers who summarily dismiss him because of his ignorance or out of malice. In addition, he falls foul of Marumu, the leader of a gang of “tsotsis” (young black hoodlums) who are terrorizing the streets of Sophiatown. Fearful that poverty will drive her son to the street gangs, his wife takes a job as a domestic servant where she must live on premises, separated from her family. Zachariah is caught sleeping with Vinah during a nightly police raid and is arrested for trespassing. He returns from prison to find his wife dead, murdered by Murumu because she refused to give in to his sexual demands.

Inexorably Zachariah’s overwhelming helplessness and frustration reveal the social impoverishment of all African men, women, and children. Starved off the land after confiscation by successive governments, the black man is uprooted from his native soil and forced continually to search for a home and livelihood. Deprived of political power, he must weave a treacherous path of survival among the myriad written and unwritten laws that govern black contact with the white world. – laws which are often contradictory and inevitably result in severe penalties. The family is increasingly torn apart when both parents must work to buy bread, leaving their children to grow up amid the violence and filth of the streets. In the end, the African is completely defenseless in his struggle to survive, inhumanely pulled between the capricious brutality of white law and the wanton violence of the black outlaw.

***

Divizionz is a guerilla film shot in Kampala, Uganda. Directed by Yes! That’s Us and produced by Deddac, Switch Media, Bigtime Entertainments and Collywood Films. The Film is represented by Wide ManagementKapo, Bana, Kanyankole and Mulokole are 4 youths that originally come from 4 regions of the country (Eastern, Central, Western and Northern respectively) but now live in a neighborhood on the outskirts of the city in the “Central Division, particularly in Zone B4. They are all aspiring musicians, with each character representing stereotypical characteristics of people from these 4 regions.

Through a contact, they have been offered a performance slot at a pub in the city that is starting “open mic sessions” locally dubbed Karaoke. Kapo quits his job and raises some money to buy a disc, on which him and his crew will perform, plus transport fare to the city. They are ambushed by “City Graduated Tax Enforcement Officers” before they can get to the city. After this, they find themselves with no money and no disc. In their quest to get to the city, they experience obstacles that test their friendship and mission.

***

Fimbo ya Baba (`Fathers` stick`)

An HIVC/Aids film produced in Pangani, Tanga Region, won a commendation by the Signis Jury and scooped the Signis Award during the 2007 Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF).

In a powerful way the film shows the plight of young women in rural Tanzania that are caused by socio-cultural norms and practices so deeply rooted in the local communities and cultures.

Fimbo ya Baba is the first rural film produced by the Pangani-based NGO UZIKWASA in collaboration with Dr. Augustin Hatar of the University of Dar es Salaam, and Nkwabi Nghangasamala of the Bagamoyo College of Arts. It was directed by Chande Omar, who is also the director of Television Zanzibar.

Once upon a time, if you saw someone with a camera happily snapping photographs in the streets of Asmara, you could be sure that they were a tourist. But that is no longer the case since more and more talented young Eritreans are taking up photography and displaying their work to an ever widening audience.

What have made this possible are the opportunities provided by the Internet. There are now websites on which artists and photographers can post their work, free of charge, and have the satisfaction of knowing it can be viewed by literally millions of people worldwide within seconds of posting.

One such site is Deviant Art, popularly known as DA. This site was started in August 2000 and now has an average of 4.5 million members logging in every day. ‘Deviants’ is the term given to the members while their works are called ‘Deviations’. It was founded as a community for artists and photographers to display their work and allow them to view and comment on the work of other members. The site grew rapidly to its present size with members from as far apart as Australia to Alaska and Kenya to Kazakhstan.

DA is a friendly site and for an artist or photographer – often the two are interchangeable – it offers a unique opportunity to learn from others who might be more experienced and willing to share their expertise. The opportunity to browse through millions of photographs is a wonderful chance for an aspiring artist-photographer to get new ideas and inspiration. But, as I said, it is, too, a friendly site and members find that they can make numerous friends of like-minded people with similar interests often from different countries and cultures.

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Ever since I discovered Sulaiman Addonia and subsequently read his book, I had been on the hunt for the author in the hope of catching an interview with him. Eventually, with the help of my most trusted aide, the ever dependable Google, I managed to get hold of his contact details and dropped him an email. His response was prompt and unpretentious. Throughout our successive email correspondence and a few telephone conversations, it was striking how Sulaiman had remained unaffected by all the hype surrounding his first novel.

At long last, following a couple of cancelled appointments and further email exchanges, our meeting was set to take place. At the rendezvous point around Russell Square in London, I instantly spot him as he approaches the station peering through his hood opening in a freezing November morning. After we shake hands and exchange the world famous Eritrean pleasantries, we head off to the Starbucks near the commanding Hotel Russell for the long awaited conversation.

As we sit over Earl Grey tea and café latté, I think to myself that it was perhaps very fitting our meeting happened in Russell Square, not very far from Bloomsbury, an area famously associated with the Bloomsbury Set, a literary group which counted great writers such as Virginia Wolfe and E.M. Forrester as its members.

“In fact, I went to UCL which is almost in the heart of Bloomsbury,” Sulaiman tells me. “I studied Economics there and went on to do my MSc in Development Studies at SOAS. I eventually ended up working at the Centre for Development Policy and Research (CDPR) based at SOAS for three years.”

At the age of 15, Sulaiman arrived in the UK from Jeddah accompanied by his brother, who was 17 at the time. Arriving in a strange country so young was tough for the young brothers. London was completely different and coming from Saudi Arabia, the contrast could not have been any greater.

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The woman sitting next to me had red hair and her friend was blonde and wore a white fur coat. They both looked like superstars from the 70’s – an appearance that took me back in time as I remembered bands like Ottawan and Boney M. Ah, those were the days – Disco.

I was on my way home to meet my fiancé for the first time. I caught my plane back at JFK and here I was, on my connection flight on board Eritrean Airlines leaving from Frankfurt. The feeling, as usual, was strange yet great – an all-Eritrean cabin (almost) and a crew speaking in Eritrean languages.

It’s all been arranged. Hanna is my-wife-to-be. She’s 19, beautiful and I’ve been told she’ll make a good wife. But the important thing is, my uncle said, she comes from a long line of fertile women. She’ll give you many children, he added. So here I was, on a journey of a lifetime, I guess.

As soon as we settled in our seats, the red-haired woman and her blonde friend started asking me a series of questions – where I was from, where in Eritrea I was going, for how long I would stay there, why I was going and more. Within fifteen minutes, there wasn’t much they didn’t know about me.

They lived in Sweden and they both spoke Tigrinia with a slight slur. Both in their mid-thirties and born and raised in Asmara, they had lived in Sweden for 13 years. Every sentence they uttered contained an English word or two and they seemed to put a lot of effort into looking refined.

“Never eat salad when you get there” the blonde sister warned me, “and make sure you haggle – otherwise, they’ll take advantage of you.” The red-hair duly added, “Don’t drink the water there – my cousin last year developed into a vessel of worms on his return to Germany.”

They? I thought I was ‘they’ too. Who, the natives? – I felt like a bit of sarcasm. But I thought better of it and left it at that. From there, all the way to Asmara, it was non-stop – ‘always order Kuluwa at a restaurant’, ‘don’t drink cold milk’, ‘if an old lady says …’ and what have you. Amusing, it sometimes is – how Eritreans going back home for a visit feel compelled to explain the behaviour of the ‘natives’ to each other.

And then, it slipped, despite my intentions otherwise I told them the main reason of my journey. Lite (– for Letebrhan) – red hair – was annoyed but Fiori was ok with it. Lite said it was disrespectful to women in the diaspora but Fiori said she was on the same mission ‘to bag me a man from home’. And that was how the topic of the discussion changed. It went on and on between my two new friends until we landed in Asmara while I came in and out of sleep.

As we got ready to get off the plane, Lite took out a white fur coat from her hand luggage and put it on. When we went past customs, as if on cue, they both produced funky looking sunglasses and put them on. Suddenly, I noticed they were both dressed in identical outfit. The only thing different was their hair.

The three of us then walked the distance from the terminal to the gate outside looking like some throwbacks from another time and era – and I swear I could see some of the people by the gate struggling not to laugh at the sight of us.

In Eritrean history, he is well known for his resistance against foreign invasion. Born in the mid-1800s in the town of Segeneiti, Debub region, Degiat Bahta Hagos – Aba T’mer – was killed while fighting against the Italian Colonial Army on December 19, 1894.

He was born to a wealthy family and spent his childhood herding some of the numerous cattle his father had acquired after settling in Segeneiti. Almost nothing is known about Bahta’s life during the time he spent farming his father’s land. In his early thirties, he got married to a woman from his village.

Bahta Hagos became an outlaw on the eve of the Ethio-Egyptian war of 1875-6 because of a blood feud with the family of Emperor Yohannes’s – Tigrean Emperor – specifically his uncle, Araya.

Emperor Yohannes had appointed Araya as overlord of the area. In the first week of October 1875, Araya’s 18-year-old son, Embaye, visited Segeneiti to demand money. Having milked the part of the province assigned to him, Embaye shoved aside the commander of the troops his father had appointed there, wounded a priest who tried to intervene, and killed a brother of Hagos Andu, Bahta Hagos’s father.

This provoked fury and the villagers rioted. Embaye’s men fired, but the enraged villagers allowed them no time to reload their single-shot muskets.  The villagers killed two-dozen of Embaye’s men. Half a dozen men of Segeneiti also died, including kinsmen of Bahta Hagos. Subsequently, Bahta avenged his relatives by killing the prince with a spear. He, together with two of his younger brothers – Kahsu and Sengal – and other young men, fled to another village below the escarpment.

In 1876, Alula, Yohannes’s trusted lieutenant, replaced Araya. Alula burned Bahta Hagos’s house and those of his relatives and confiscated their cattle and other property. Bahta and his brothers made a permanent camp at Agameda. There, the brothers added to their stock of firearms and ammunitions by waylaying the escorts of Araya and Alula who happened to pass by from time to time. Like the other Eritrean tribal leaders, Degiat Bahta Hagos was in constant conflict with the Ethiopian invading forces. He evaded the Tigrean Rases’ repeated attempts to capture him and allied himself with the Egyptian garrison in Keren.

In 1885, Italian colonial presence replaced the defeated Egyptians and they controlled Massawa. Degiat Bahta Hagos moved to ally himself with them and their General, Oreste Baratieri. In 1893, the Italians reserved some 19,000 hectares of land for European use. A year later, almost fifteen times that amount was set aside and the first half a dozen Italian families began arriving to settle in the Eritrean highlands.

Degiat Bahta became frustrated and could not accept the conduct of the Italian Colonial Government and their soldiers. In the evening of 14 December 1894, he began his revolt against the Italians. After gathering his people at the market, Degiat Bahta issued a call for resistance and said, “The Italians curse us, seize our land. I want to free you. Let us drive the Italians out and be our own masters.”

Following that, Degiat Bahta, with his brother Sengal and his son Ghebremedhin, cut telegraph wires north to Asmara and arrested Lieutenant Giovanni Sanguineti, a new Italian resident at Segeneiti. On hearing the news, Baratieri, who was in Keren supervising dealings with the Mahdists, telegraphed Asmara ordering major Petro Tosselli to march his battalion down to Segeneiti.

Upon arrival, the Major entered negotiations with Hagos who stalled him with excuses and promises of loyalty. The Italian reinforcements started to arrive and by the evening of December 17^th, Tosselli had 1,500 men and two artillery pieces. He went to move against Hagos on the morning of December 18^th, but found him gone. Hagos had secretly abandoned Segeneiti in the night and had moved his forces north against the Italian garrison of 220 men at the small fort of Halay, commandeered by Captain Castellazzi. Tosselli correctly guessed this was Hagos’ plan, and marched his men towards Halay.

Bahta Hagos called for Castellazzi to surrender and abandon the fort. Negotiations continued until the afternoon, when Hagos’ patience came to an end and the attack was ordered. Though low on ammunition, the Italians held out until late afternoon. Toselli’s forces arrived at that moment and launched an attack on Hagos’s army rear. Degiat Bahta Hagos was shot during the battle and died at Ona-keran in Halay.

Because of his influence at the time, after his death, the Italian colonial government banned his burial fearing that his grave would become a source of further rebellions. However, his body was secretly interred in a grave by his loyal friend, Soquar Bahro Digsa, in Halay and later moved to Segeneiti in 1963. Following Eritrean independence in 1991, his remains were again interred in December 2007 with full honours in recognition of his struggles.

In Eritrea, kids who did well at school would become instant celebrities. More than any other type of celebrity, these guys were the most distinguished. Ermias was such a kid. In Asmara where he grew up, people knew of him as the kid genius. As a child growing up in Asmara, I remember him as the tall and lanky boy people would point out in the street and whisper to each other, ‘that’s the genius you know.’

So years later, when I heard the news that Dr Ermias Kebreab, Associate Professor at a university in Canada, had been given the Young Scientist Award, it did not come to me as a surprise. It was simply a case of a man fulfilling his destiny.

When Ermias was 9, his father, the late Dr. Kebreab W. Giorgis, was appointed the Secretary General of the Asmara Chamber of Commerce and moved his family to Asmara from Ethiopia where Ermias was born. While in Addis Ababa, he studied at the Cathedral Boys Private School until grade three.

The family moved to Eritrea during one of the most difficult times in Eritrean history with war and lack of resources as major challenges especially for parents. In Asmara, he was sent to Comboni School for Boys, a private school run by missionaries of the Daniel Comboni order, and completed his 12^th grade there.

“The Comboni Fathers were a very strict group of missionaries who were dedicated to their profession,” remembers Dr Ermias “There was very little room for failure in the college. I remember the entire class in my year gained admission to a university of their choice. If you compared that to less than 20% rate of success in public schools, it shows that teaching methods and dedication of teachers has a great impact on student results.”

Dr. Ermias’s father had a huge influence in the academic performance of his son. Dr Kebreab was always attentive to his son’s academic needs and regularly followed up on his grades and advised him on how to improve them.

“My father has a lot to do with the type of person I’ve turned out,” says Dr. Ermias. “Before his death in 1981, he was the department head of the Economics Department at the University of Asmara and I have always wanted to be a professor working in a university as a result. He was a hard working, intelligent person which for any young kid is a great role model.”

As a young student, Ermias was always fascinated by biology. He wanted to learn about the different species of plants and animals and this eventually led him to the department of biology at the University of Asmara in 1983.

Although there was lack of resources at the University of Asmara at the time, the institution was teeming with dedicated and highly competent teachers who worked really hard to give their students a firm academic foundation. This was important in enabling many of Dr. Ermias’s contemporaries to succeed in Western universities later in life.

At university, he studied parasitic plants and their method of survival. However, during the last year, he developed great interest in plant-animal interactions which became the focus of his scientist’s life later on.

“I was an assistant to a Swedish taxonomist who was working in Asmara at the time and enjoyed finding out the local flora and I have collected a few plants that are part of the Herbarium at Asmara University,” he says.

In 1987, he gained his BSc in Biology, Chemistry and Mathematics summa cum laude – with great distinction – and was offered a job at the university as a graduate assistant. After working there for two years, he won a scholarship from the World Bank and arrived in the UK to continue his graduate studies in 1989. In 1991, just as Eritrea gained its independence, he completed his MSc.

“Following independence, I didn’t see much point in staying in the UK,” he says. “Therefore, I left for home to join the University of Asmara once again. After two years of service, I went back to the UK to continue my education.”

In the UK, one of his biggest challenges was trying to get funding to study at graduate school in England. He did not have a sponsor when he enrolled for a PhD program and  had to work 16 hours a day in two low-paying jobs to save enough money to pay for his first year’s tuition.

“Once I saved enough money for the first year, I began studying and also working part-time to cover my living expenses,” he says. “During the first two years of my study, I wrote about 250 letters to funding agencies and was finally successful in obtaining a sponsor to cover the last two years of my three-year program.”

In 1998, he completed his PhD in Mathematical Modelling of Biological Systems. The same year, he joined the department of Agriculture at the University of Reading in England and worked as Research Associate until 2003.

“I was lucky to be offered a job just before I finished my PhD – so the transition from student to professional employment was smooth,” Dr. Ermias says. “So far, it’s been going very well and I’m on course to achieving my goal of full professorship and tenure within the next few years.”

Later in 2003, he was asked to relocate to Canada and join the University of Guleph. Three years after he arrived in Canada, he was invited to apply for a Canada Research Chair position, one of the few federally funded programs across Canada, and was offered a tenure track position as Associate Professor.

In 2006, he put together a team and currently heads a research program with three post-doctoral fellows, two doctoral and two master’s students. The federal government has funded a purpose built facility for the research group and currently Dr. Ermias manages a program with over $2 million annual turnover.

“As Canada Research Chair holder, I am expected to be a leader in the field of Mathematical modelling of Agricultural Systems,” says Dr. Ermias. “Basically, I try to develop models that will enable us to study the whole agricultural system as a whole and find solutions to various problems. One of these problems is emission of greenhouse gas from animals and their environment.”

Currently, Dr. Ermias is leading his group of scientists to conduct research with the aim of reducing greenhouse gas emission from agriculture and help Canada meet its obligations to the Kyoto Protocol.

Most countries are signatory to this protocol and are required to lower their emissions. His main responsibility is therefore aimed at helping his adopted country overcome the challenges and find a sustainable way for greener and more economically feasible ways of farming.

In recognition of his consistently outstanding contribution to scientific research and its application in the real world, Dr Ermias has been presented with various awards. In 2007, he was presented with the Early Career Achievement Award.

The Early Career Achievement Award was introduced by the American Society of Animal Science (ASAS) in 2007 to recognise the achievement of outstanding young scholars working toward the mission of ASAS. The previous year, Dr. Ermias was presented with the Young Scientist Award from the Canadian Society of Animal Science.

“Academically, receiving these two awards was the highlight of my career so far,” says Dr Ermias “Nomination to Canada Research Chair and receiving a framed letter from the Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, were also highlights in my career. However, the most brilliant moment in my life happened when my wife and I were blessed with the birth of our daughter ten years ago.”

Dr. Ermias has also written a book in a posthumous collaboration with his father. The book, Yatawn Zemnawn Mslatat Tigrinya, contains over 5000 proverbs & 170 riddles and was published by Ermipublihing.

“I used to see my father write a book of Tigrinya proverbs when I was growing up and read most of what he was collecting at the time,” he remembers. “After his premature death in 1981, I wanted to get the book published so it would be available to readers interested in the great tradition Eritrean proverbs.”

Judging by the number of awards that have been bestowed upon him, it seems that Dr. Ermias is steadily and surely gaining a celebrity status amongst his colleagues in the world of scientific research. In his own words, “recent events in the world, especially the election of the first black president in the United States, have demonstrated that although there are a lot of challenges in life, they are not impossible to overcome.”

No doubt Dr. Ermias, despite any challenge that might come his way, will continue to make a difference in our world with an African signature.

“I take very seriously the opportunity to articulate my own personal and cultural story within the current international and contemporary art context,” says Dawit L. Petros, an artist based in New York. “If we fail to register our individual and collective narratives, it will be written for us by others. History is rife with the implications.”

This statement is the principal basis for the Eritrean Diaspora Mapping Project which Dawit is currently putting together. The work is concerned with establishing a comprehensive map linking the locations around the globe where Eritreans live. The ultimate aim of the project is to create a large wall mural and a series of photographs and text based on the Eritrean diaspora experience.

The idea is, for participating individuals to first obtain a map of the city where they live. Once they do that, they then draw onto the map the daily route they take most frequently to travel from home to work, school etc. Finally, they are asked to get hold of a postcard of the city, state, province or region in which they currently live and on the back, write the route they travelled from Eritrea to where they now live, using only the names of city and country. If they were born outside of Eritrea, then they use the place of their birth as the starting point.

“The displacement of the Eritrean diaspora is both unique and general,” explains Dawit. “Global shifts of population to locations far from points of origin are not ours alone. It’s imperative to acknowledge the intersection of our own specific history with those of others and develop a framework from which to assess these narratives. The mapping project aims to put the Eritrean dispersal throughout the world into visual form.”

The project has a personal dimension as far as Dawit is concerned. The artist was born in Asmara in 1972 and two years later his family, along with baby Dawit, fled Eritrea and following a long journey through Ethiopia, Kenya and Sudan, arrived in the city of Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Canada in 1980.

Dawit spent his formative years in Canada and following the first stages of schooling, he went on to complete a Bachelor of Arts in History at the University of Saskatchwan in 1996. He then continued his studies in Art, completing a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada and a Master of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University (2007).

“There was not a precedent in my family or broader Eritrean community for being an artist and so it took me a long time to figure out how to proceed,” says Dawit. “And so my emergence into life as an artist is the sum of many experiences that I’ve had to stumble and experiment with. I’ve always been highly inquisitive in a way that few other disciplines could satisfy and so art provided a framework through which critical observations of the world could be constructively manifested.”

Since 2007, Dawit has been living and working in NYC where he is now officially represented by Alexander Gray Associates gallery. His work has been shown in solo and group exhibitions in Canada and the United States.
Currently, he is the Artist-in-Residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem, reputed as one of the premier international museums for the production and exhibition of works by artists of African descent.

“The residency is a year long program at the Studio Museum,” says Dawit. “For me, this is a unique opportunity to disseminate my work in a program that mixes exhibitions, education and public programming.”

Each year, the Studio Museum in Harlem offers a 12-month studio residency for three emerging artists. Each artist is granted a free non-living studio space, a fellowship, and a material stipend. Toward the end of the residency, an exhibition of the artist’s work is presented in the Museum’s galleries.

The Eritrean Diaspora Mapping Project is a huge commission in as much as it aims to engage Eritreans in the diaspora the world over. The project is related to the questions of cultural and personal memory. Although there’s scope to assume that the original birth place has a lot to do with who were are, the focus is not solely on that.

“Each place we’ve travelled through has had an impact on who we have become as an individual and as communities,” explains Dawit. “And so the project also insists that though our daily travels are intricately linked to a broader, historical context, these daily travels are establishing new narratives that are re-defining who we are as individuals within new contexts.

“In considering Eritreans who’ve made lives in disparate locations such as Australia, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Britain, to name just a few, I’ve always been keenly aware that it’s sheer circumstance, often beyond our control, that took us to our respective end points. The conditions that enabled a family friend to receive a student visa to Saskatoon, Canada, and not Norway, meant that my family located to Canada and not Norway.”

According to Dawit, a telling inspiration for the current work is firmly linked to this very reality. As such, the project is an artistic narrative that joins the various possibilities which shape the lives of individuals and families in the diaspora. In this respect, the work is a collaborative work which will allow diaspora Eritreans of various forms and shapes to take part both as creators and audiences of the ultimate art work.

“Art is by its very nature collaborative, it requires both artist and audience for an exchange, a conversation to occur,” Dawit says. “In the mapping project, the collaborative process is even more explicit. The information provided by participants – names of cities, countries and daily routes provided – will constitute the work itself. So without these contributions, the project will simply not be possible. Therefore, the participants will be both contributors to the work and the audience.”

History is full of accounts of important events and experiences with the noticeable absence of the subaltern. To a great extent, the dominant perception of history as something that can only be written by experts has perpetuated this trend. The voice of the ‘little people’ is often missing from the narrative that describes their experience – their history. Perhaps in this context, the Eritrean Diaspora Mapping Project can be seen as a corrective of the artistic kind which will restore the missing voices in a narrative that belongs to the people. In a way, it is about adding the people’s voice and making history more representative.

FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROJECT, PLEASE CLICK HERE

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NOTE FROM DAWIT PETROS: I kindly ask you to send your map and postcard together in the same envelope to Dawit L. Petros, C/O The Studio Museum in Harlem, 144 W 125th St, New York, NY 10027, USA. Contact me should you require any additional information or if there are any questions that you may have. I graciously thank you for your participation and look forward to your contribution. All kind regards.

The effects of bullying

There are often differences of interpretation with some of this behaviour – what’s considered gentle teasing by one child might appear as intimidation to another. There is no doubt that for some children and young people, bullying – however defined – is the most stressful experience of their lives. Some fear it so much they refuse to go to school or find excuses to avoid situations where bullying can occur.

At the most extreme level, bullying can on rare occasions lead to suicide or attempted suicide, so it must always be taken seriously.

Victims of bullying

Some young people are more likely to be the victims of bullying than others. Those with an obvious physical characteristic, such as being overweight, can become targets, as can those with some form of disability. Those who are shy or diffident, or who find it hard to stand up for themselves may also be vulnerable.

Victims of bullying often feel ashamed of what is happening and blame themselves. It is here that friends and important adults have a key role to play – bullying victims need support to see that it’s not their fault and that something can be done to help them.

As a parent or guardian, what can you do?

Adults can do a number of things to help, although sometimes it can be difficult to see how to proceed. If your child is showing signs of stress and you are not sure what is going on, bullying may be one possible cause. Here are 8 good tips on how to help your child.

8 Tips on how to help if child is bullied in school

1. Do not ignore the bullying – often, ignoring bullying allows it to become more serious.
2. Never blame your child for getting bullied – always try to find out what caused the bullying in the first place.
3. Listen to what your child tells you – ask him or her to describe who was involved and how and where each bullying episode happened.
4. Try to find out as much as you can about the bullying tactics used, and when and where the bullying happened.
5. Show our child that you care deeply – tell them that that bullying is wrong, not their fault, and that you are glad they had the courage to tell you about it.
6. Do not criticise you child about how they handled the bullying situation – offer them advice instead.
7. Never, under any circumstances, encourage physical retaliation – hitting another student is not likely to end the problem but exacerbate the situation.
8. Make sure you check your emotions – although difficult, always step back and consider the next steps carefully.

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USEFUL WEBSITES: www.bullying.co.uk