MEET MERI TRAINERS

Meri ‘መሪ’ is a leadership and mentorship program that was first launched by Billene Seyoum under Earuyan Solutions, and is now under AWiB (Association of Women in Boldness). Meri aims to provide critical leadership and employability skills training to young female senior university students/newly graduates through soft skills and job readiness training, with the intention of tackling youth employment. The graduates of this program will serve as ambassadors whiles echoing the message of developing young professional leaders in Ethiopia.
Meri Objective
The objective of the መሪ program is designed to introduce and match recent female university graduates with experienced Ethiopian career and businesswomen, complemented by a leadership development program that is twelve weeks long and an annual forum – Meri Medrek “መሪ መድረክ” aimed at building a growing network of mentees and mentors.
Meri Program Outcome
- A self-assured and self-confident career woman.
- An independent and critical thinker who is curious about her surroundings.
- A socially conscious woman whose aim is contributing to a larger community.
- An ambitious leader whose goal is to bring change in corporations, politics, academia, and Ethiopia.
- A self-poised woman who sells her ideas effortlessly.
- A compassionate and inclusive leader with the skill to build and maintain relationships.
- A woman whose life’s purpose is to become a voice to the voiceless.
- A fearless worrier who makes Ethiopia proud.
- A kind considerate daughter, sister, friend, and neighbor.
- A woman whose middle name is commitment, whose calling is effectiveness, whose purpose is a sisterhood.
Here are our Meri trainers who help us bring Meri’s objective and vision to life;
Hasset Chenu

Hasset Chenu is a multi-talented person that gets fascinated by movements that work towards youth development. Her passion is working on the development of young people in her country and beyond. In the past decade, she has trained, mentored, coached and counseled over 5000 young people. Moreover, her story and her storytelling skills have given her an opportunity to touch and inspire many lives.
Her exposure to different fields of education helped her gain a profound knowledge in addressing the needs of the youth, especially young girls. Hasset’s expertise includes Psychology, Development, Management and Informatics from recent to past at post graduate level. Hasset works as a senior Digital Marketer at Berhan Bank. In addition, she is serving as a vice chairperson of board in three organizations that work on the development of the youth.
Hanna Atnafu

Apart from her impeccable track record as an expert in the digital world and her flawless communication and interpersonal skills, Hanna Atnafu is a highly motivated senior advisor, consultant, and trainer who goes an extra mile to reach goals and give back to her community.
Hanna has exceptional leadership and well-developed industry knowledge and proficiency of 23 years of professional career. She has shown a keen ability to lead and influence internal and external stakeholders across the business with her strategic leadership and ideation skills.
Hanna has voiced the concerns of female employees and contributed by mentoring, institutionalizing of new rules and procedures such as policy change, and facilitating of the deployment of breast pumping centers with an auspicious environment to the young mothers. She also implemented the “all women functioned flight” from its inception to its execution and successfully led the operation and the inaugural flight to Bangkok.
Through rigorous hard work and a keen eye for detail, she has achieved outstanding results substantiated by receiving the awards for the African Travel 100 Women Award.
Hanna has earned MA in Transformational Leadership and Change and MSc) on Project Planning and Management. Hanna is married with four children.
Mesfin Asfaw
Managing Partner, Paradigm consultancy

Mesfin is a seasoned trainer and certified management consultant. His many years of experience in leading and managing big projects places him among the best in the consulting business. He is also a competent leader and a witty public speaker. He has won Toastmaster’s “so you think you can speak” (SYTYCS 2014) speaker of the year award.
Mesfin is a hard and winning negotiator that he uses this important skill to develop many ferocious negotiators like himself and succeeding. He is the utmost expert in Emotional Intelligence training which is a skill must have to lead and develop successful team—the mark of great leaders.
Mesfin holds B.Sc. in Architecture from MANIT India and an MBA in Human Resource Management from IGNOU, India.
Nebil Kellow
Founding Partner, First Consult

Nebil Kellow is a Partner at First Consult PLC, an economic development practice that implements projects supporting wealth creation in Ethiopia. Nebil’s work is centred on the growth of SMEs, skills development and improving access to finance. Nebil has previously worked for McKinsey & Co. and in the investment industry in the UK and is passionate about increasing the role of youth and women to lead growth and transformation in Africa.
Ruth Mekach

Ruth Mekach is a program and research specialist at Miklol Consulting and Research Firm. Her main responsibilities are assisting the Managing Director in the coordination and management of the firm Program of planning and designing programs/ projects and oversee the development and management of clients and donor proposals, grants and reporting.
Ruth served as a lecturer of law at Dilla University. Ruth also engages in community service activities giving services for a Free Legal Aid Centers. She is a professional youth development trainer giving various awareness creation and capacity building trainings focusing on Gender Based Violence and child right issues. Ruth has earned LLM Degree in Commercial Law from Hawassa University.
Robel Teferedgne

Robel is a multi-talented individual engaged in founding and running a few businesses. He is a Managing Partner and GM of Greater Business Consultancy Plc. and Managing Partner of Robel and Tadious Whole Sale and Retail Company. Robel, for the past twenty years, has been engaged in various activities and professions: training, consultancy, teaching, management position, founder of a consultancy firm, and managing a restaurant. He is a reputable trainer at Addis Ababa Chamber of Commerce and other organizations. He also has served as dean and department head at Unity University.
His long resume includes industry experiences in turnkey projects: development of marketing strategy, human resource system development, research, setting and activating vibrant marketing team, and related marketing and managerial projects.
He is passionate about creating new ventures. He is a devout trainer, a passionate and humble man.
Tsemire Mezemir

Tsemire Mezemir is a co-founder of Mind Morning Behavior Training, Research & Consultancy PLC which is established in 2013 G.C. Tsemire has an experience of more than 12 years in Personal Development Trainings. She is working intuitively on Self-Discovery Trainings (SDT) and counseling. She is also a host of her Radio show “ንጋትና ህይወት”.
She is known for her self-value, energetic, creative, and visionary.
Currently Tsemire is working profoundly on Parents and Children in the conviction of “Self-awareness is the base for a Healthy Family”.
In the Meri Project of AWiB, Tsemire has been focusing on the discovery of the inner self to amount the outer achievements.
Eskinder Kassa
Founder and CEO of LITHWS Coaching Consultancy Firm

Eskinder is a personal trainer and life coach with over 15 years of a profound experience. He has consulted in personal development and leadership coaching in Ethiopia, Germany, Kenya, UK, USA, and Turkey. His aim is to unlock inner greatness and a transparent process that guarantees growth in leadership.
LITHWS Coaching consulting Firm (pronounced Lighthouse) Let Individual Transformation for A Higher World Solutions is founded to address leadership and youth empowerment program with meaningful results. Eskinder is the facilitator, coach, and motivational speaker with academia, government institutions, NGOs, international organizations, and private companies.
Siham Ayele

Siham Ayele runs a national youth employment project- “Dereja.com”- a platform that aims to develop the soft skills of young graduates to make them competent to join the workforce and as a result curb youth unemployment.
Siham finds comfort in books and keeping journals. Siham, as a political science and international relations scholar, found her passion in addressing the socio-economic problems related with youth unemployment. Her enthusiasm and desire led her to current position to practice her love for knowledge-sharing. She believes the youth has untapped potential but no system to unlock their potential or dreams.
Dereja.com helps screen young female leaders for the Meri leadership & mentorship program. This mentorship program is all the more rewarding for Siham as she went through a similar program during her early collage years organized by AWiB.
For more info: http://awib.org.et/newsite/siham-ayele-arming-the-youth-for-national-impact/
Nahu Senay Girma

Nahu S. Girma is Founder & Director of Association of Women in Boldness (AWiB) founded on April, 2010 primarily as a women’s networking platform but over the years has transformed into leadership institution. She has over 30 years of experience in designing, developing and delivering training programs on leadership skills, team management, conflict resolutions, and sales. She has dedicated her life to creating a safe space for women to learn, grow and empower themselves to become the best version of themselves.
Throughout her career Nahu has mentored and guided numerous young women to embrace themselves and unleash their potential. She hopes to continue to do so for the young girls of the Meri program.
For more info: http://awib.org.et/newsite/nahu-senay-girma-dynamism-embodied-2/
Helen Degefa

Helen Degefa has over ten years of experience on working in developmental projects, specifically focusing on women and youth empowerment. Currently, Helen is working as Gender Equity and Diversity advisor at CARE Ethiopia supporting CARE’s commitment to enhance gender equality at institutional and programmatic level.
Helen is a proud feminist who is passionate about gender equality and youth empowerment; she is also an advocate for social justices. She believes in investing on young girls and women to create a world where equity and fairness exists. She is thrilled to be part of the young female leaders making progress through Meri leadership and mentorship program.
Mekedela Mekuria

A passionate Marketing & Entrepreneurship lecturer at St. Mary’s University trying to make a difference through creative teaching, inspiration & story-telling. Mekedela considers himself a full-time student of life who is dynamic, self-motivated, and confident with excellent management & people skills. He is part of Toastmaster and is dedicated to improving his leadership and public speaking skills. He is also marketing personnel and offers training in various personal development areas as a freelancer. He carries out the tasks he takes part in with a great sense of responsibility and always strives to make a positive contribution.