On one meeting of Intent, Asrat told me that he has some big servers he wanted to give to an educational institute. I asked Sait Mary University College, they accepted to pay some costs (transport, storage and refurbishment). Later on I met Millicent during a work visit in Tunisia and shared this news, she said that she has 200 computers she can donate to SMUC.
4 weeks ago, the servers and 200 computers lefted Rotterdam. They are now in Addis. Part of the computers will be used for SMUC Entrepreneurship and Innovation Centre. Meleya Foundation will co-create an entrepreneurship programme to support young entrepreneurs. This Project is supported by OXFAM NOVIB.
I'm happy about this!
Many thanks to Asrat, Millicent, Mission and Relief, Ato Taye, and for sure others i forgot to mention. Numaair, Iwan (it is because of your Intent meeting) and the Good Work for SMUC!! And thank you to my Husband and my daughters for being patient and also inpatient!
What's next?
Now I'm looking for 10 Apple computers for Bleu Nile Film SchoolStudents in Addis Ababa. The 1st group of students graduated a few months ago. Some of them would like to create a working lab. They need equipments, software and technical support.
If you are interested in donating:
- Apple computers or laptops (criteria: internal memory preferably 4 GB, speed preferable 233 g Hz)
- editing programs (final cut, Adobe Premiere Pro, or other)
Please contact us.
I wish you All the best for 2011!!
2011 seems very promising for Meleya Foundation, with your support!!
The New Business School Amsterdam was hosting Meleya during the last Miljonair Fair in Amsterdam (9-13/12 RAI, Amsterdam – 53.000 visitors). The purpose was to build extra awareness around the ‘Meleya Business Competition Awards’ (MBCA) and find potential donators to support the project.
Every visitor of the stand was offered a cup of Meleya premium coffee and told the story around Meleya. A short film of the first Meleya Business Competition Awards, having taken place in Addis Ababa, was displayed on the stand.
The next step for us and for the New Business School Amsterdam students will be to recruit as many Meleya friends and donators as possible.
Meanwhile, Meleya has been put on the following social media: facebook,twitter and blog.
We are also working on a new, interactive, website.
The Meleya adventure started four years ago, when a close friend of mine, Debritu, an Ethiopian woman entrepreneur, asked me to co-organize the Ethiopia Millennium, occurring on the 12th of September 2007. I was honored and accepted with enthusiasm. We agreed on the fact that we also had to initiate a sustainable project, involving both Ethiopia and The Netherlands.
I see myself again, taking a white sheet of paper and writing my thoughts about it. I am not a specialist in humanitarian issues, neither in geopolitical questions but I know one thing: you get the best out of people when you empower them. And to empower Ethiopian people, you need a common project, together with Europeans, on equal basis. Next to this, I am convinced from the start that we have to focus on young people and stimulate them to become entrepreneurs.
My core-business being marketing-communication, a logic idea was to work together with students on both sides, Ethiopia and The Netherlands, in order to create a new sustainable brand. Debritu and I selected two schools, specialized in marketing, the New Business School Amsterdam and the Saint Mary University College in Addis Ababa. We travelled with 12 Dutch students to Addis in order to meet their 12 Ethiopian fellow students and work together on a challenging assignment: create a brand of a new kind, responsible, sustainable and cool at the same time.
I remember that our young people learnt first to know each other by talking and exchanging about their differences or similarities. Then came the travelling within Ethiopia, the laughing and the dancing in the bus, it was great because I felt then that they could perfectly get along with each other and share the same dreams and goals. They worked hard on their assignment, based at Saint Mary University. We divided them in mixed groups in order to compete. This gave an extra stimulation to the process, every group did its best. Then came the final presentation in front of a jury of teachers and entrepreneurs. Most proposals were really creative and well thought about. We choose for the name fitting the most with the spirit of the project:Meleya, meaning Identity and “A unique embrace” as a slogan. A new brand was born…
Four years after, I am leaving for the 6thtime to Ethiopia with Dutch students of NBS. A lot of good things have happened in between and a lot of obstacles had to be over won. Meleya has became a beautiful foundation, owner of the brand, chasing a noble goal which is educate young people and stimulate their entrepreneurship. The Meleya brand also allows the selling of Ethiopian Premium coffee. I will tell you more about the Meleya Foundation within a couple of days.
