Alewana (ኣለዋና!)

Eritrea: Extraordinary Eritreans - a Support Centre for Eritreans in Israel

Sultan’s success is to understand precisely what her community needs. The centre also provides day-care services for young children to allow their mothers time to work, and will soon implement a program to tackle domestic abuse and prostitution among Eritrean women.

“When I see other women who are abused, in addition to the stress they have from the policies here and the general situation, with others suffering just inside their houses, it hurts me a lot. So I feel responsible. I have to do something if I can help these women,” she says.

Despite providing a lifeline for Eritrean women in Israel, the centre is constantly threatened with closure as it strives from month to month to find funding from private Eritrean donors living abroad.

The White House recognized Haben Girma as a Champion of Change on February 26, 2013.

Haben Girma is being honored as a Champion of Change for her efforts in Educational Excellence for African Americans.

The White House Champions of Change Program honors ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things, and this week’s Champions have taken extraordinary strides for America’s students. Haben and nine other Champions discussed important changes in education that would help students across the country. The event took place at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in The White House. In addition to friends and family, the events’ audience comprised of U.S. Dept. of Education officials, including Secretary Arne Duncan, and White House officials. During her segment of the program, Haben stressed the importance of high quality teachers for students with disabilities, the invaluable support of state deafblind projects, and the need for schools to consider accessibility when investing in emerging technologies.

Sister Azezet Kidane has received the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Heroes Award.

On June 19, 2012, Sister Azezet Kidane, originally from Eritrea, a Comboni sister living in Jerusalem, received the U.S. State Department’s Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Heroes Award. Sister Azezet was recognized for her extraordinary contribution in exposing and leading, together with Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, a campaign aimed at raising awareness worldwide of the systematic trafficking, kidnapping, and torture of refugees in the Sinai Desert prior to their entry into Israel. The granting of the award coincided with the annual release of the State Department’s annual Trafficking In Persons (TIP) Report.

Voices of Courage Honoree Rim Tekie Solomon

Several months ago, Rozen Sigal of Hotline for Migrants (an ICER affiliate) received by e-mail a notice, calling for nominees to the "Voices of Courage" prize, granted by the Women's Refugee Commission. Reading the notice, she immediately thought about Rim Tekie. Rim now 20 years old was a prisoner at Saharonim prison when she was barely 16 years old. Because she spoke fluent Tigrinya, Arabic and English she worked without pay as translator for the prison Administrative Tribunal.

Despite her young age, Rim had to translate to the Administrative Tribunal judges. She had to spend long hours every day translating the stories of the Eritrean and Sudanese women who were regularly tortured and persecuted in their country of origin, and often raped in the desert by smugglers. When asked about her pro-bono translation work she simply replied “ it as a privilege to be able assist her fellow women refugees”.

White House Honors Nunu Kidane, PAN Director

White House Highlights Nunu Kidane as a “Champion of Change” and Trailblazer in American Diaspora Communities

WASHINGTON, DC – On Monday, January 30th, the White House will honor Nunu Kidane as one of fourteen Champions of Change who are leaders in American Diaspora communities with roots in the Horn of Africa. These leaders are helping to build stronger neighborhoods in communities across the country, and are working to mobilize networks across borders to address global challenges.

Journalist Meron Estefanos received Isaak Prize of National Press Club's Western Circuit

Journalist Meron Estefanos received during Monday evening Isaak Prize of National Press Club's western circuit. With its radio broadcasts that reach all the way to Eritrea, she gives voice to the silenced and imprisoned journalist Dawit Isaak.

National Press Club's West Circuit has since 2007 annually awarded a special Isaak Award to individuals or organizations involved in Dawit Isaak's spirit of freedom of expression, press freedom and democratic rights and freedoms.

This year's winner is debater, human rights activist and journalist Meron Estefanos which is host of the radio station Voice of Delina Maselna. The programs are made ​​in Tigrinya, sent from Stockholm and reach Eritrea via shortwave.

 

The Nightingale sings of persecution in Eritrea

A powerful new book telling the story of gospel singer Helen Berhane , who was imprisoned in a shipping container in the East African state of Eritrea and brutally tortured for her faith, has been launched by Christian organisation Release International.

Helen was detained for two years by the military junta in Eritrea, during which she was severely beaten and kept in a metal shipping container in the heat of the desert.

She and many other Christians who had been rounded up by the authorities were locked in the airless, unsanitary steel container, and left to bake in the desert by day and freeze by night.

She tells her story in Song of the Nightingale, which is being published with the support of Release International.  In it she describes the atmosphere inside the container:

“A single candle flickers, its flame barely illuminating the darkness. They never burn for more than two hours after the container door is locked: there is not enough oxygen to keep the flame alive any longer. It will go out soon.

Life as a girl soldier in Eritrea

Ian Brimacombe reports on a woman who fought in the Eritrean struggle for independence from Ethiopia. She was just 13 when she became a soldier. She spent the next 16 years fighting in a brutal guerrilla war.

Meriem Omer began her life as a girl soldier in 1976.

"I joined the cause voluntarily. I felt like I had to do something," she told the BBC's World Update programme. "It was a hot political situation. I saw villages burning. I was surrounded by war. The regime was imprisoning many people. One of them was my father."

 

"In the battlefield, you could be as aggressive as a man and as merciless as a man"

Elizabeth/ Elsa Chyrum: Human Rights Activist (Eritrea)

On 20 June 2009, Elsa Chyrum, a human rights activist and advocate for Eritrean refugees all over the world, has received a Distinguished Medal Award of Excellence from the Eritrean Community For Human Rights and Refugee Protection in a symposium organized by Eritrean Global Solidarity in recognition of her human rights crusade, in general, and her tireless work with refugees, in particular.

Without exaggeration, Elsa Chyrum is a one-woman institution. First and foremost, she is the one person who has been handling the plight of Eritrean refugees from all over the world single-handedly, be it from stranded Eritreans in Khartoum in imminent risk of their lives, detained and abused refugees in a prison in Libya, traumatized refugees in fear of perishing in the Mediterranean high seas, terrified refugees soon to be deported from Egypt, or refugees who have reached their destination but afraid of rejection by their host country. Calm and reassuring at times of emergency, she is known to have turned hopeless seeming cases into happy endings at the 11^th hour.