Determined, focused, resourceful, courageous, bold, wise and witty—these would be some of the adjectives to describe this unrelenting woman who discovered her purpose to be of use at an early age.

Determined, focused, resourceful, courageous, bold, wise and witty—these would be some of the adjectives to describe this unrelenting woman who discovered her purpose to be of use at an early age. To spend some time with this powerful, highly confident and at times cocky woman is a lesson in the wisdom of honoring one’s life purpose and why we all must find one and commit to it. And this is even before discovering the challenges Senedu went through to get where she is today–changing thousands of lives for good. She says she is grateful just to be in this position of helping others and achieving against all odds. She tells us she is overwhelmed but humbled by the experience life has presented her with and sometimes questions why her; but the strong and risk taking personality that she is, she also says why not me! And that by itself is uplifting for those who are willing to listen to her story.

Vision on Africa (VOA) originated with a little girl’s dream. At age 11, Senedu went to Kobo, in the Wollo Province, with four of her classmates and a teacher, where she personally witnessed the plight of Orphan Vulnerable Children: their voices were ignored and their basic needs were far from being met. She felt helpless as it was impossible to accommodate all of the 750 children at her house but wanted to make a direct impact, thus harnessed her family’s help to adopt a boy named Fekade Belay. She has been compelled to make a difference ever since. In 2003, she left her corporate management position in the US, sold her house and took early retirement to incorporate her dream of helping the disadvantaged into a reality and founded VoA.

Vision on Africa (VoA) is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization incorporated in the State of Virginia and registered in Ethiopia serving the underprivileged in the Yeka sub-city, Kotebe area which comprises of 40,000 households in six Kebeles and three Farmers Associations.  VoA is registered in South Africa and pending registration in Kenya, Mali and Ghana. VoA was registered in Ethiopia in April 2004, signed a tri-partite agreement with the Addis Ababa City Administration Social and Non Governmental Organization Affairs Office and the Health Bureau to deliver an integrated mother and child health center targeting 140,000 people in the Kotebe area. VoA secured a facility and opened a center in March 2005 after assessing the area’s needs through a comprehensive feasibility study and baseline survey.

Senedu’s Vision to work on the entire continent originated from her successful import/export business of African products. Because of her business, she travelled for many years extensively in the entire continent to witness well made Africa’s unique and exotic local arts and crafts could bring millions to the continent. Before she closed her business due to shift in priorities, she decided when and if she does help Africans come out of poverty, it would be by becoming part of the movement of advocating for markets in the global stage so Africa succeeds as formidable exporter of her rich and colorful heritages. To do that, there needs to be massive and extensive training. She wanted to start her first project in South Africa but her mother who had been a supporter of her dream encouraged her to change course and focus on her homeland first. Senedu relented but never looked back.

Is her focus only on women? No, but it headed that way because she says when she started, it was at the peak of the HIV epidemic and her focus was to save the future generation. She says a society can’t function without a healthy workforce and the project started by giving medical help and advice and mainly on prevention- – mother to child transmission.

VoA’s Mother and Child Health Center provides services: antenatal care, immunization, family planning, counseling, health education, laboratory tests, voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) to over 40,000 mothers and children.

VoA’s Self-sustainable Development Program provides capacity building and skill enhancement trainings to mothers and youth so they could learn to produce hand made products to generate income and sustain their livelihood.  The training takes four to five months and consists of designing patterns, color coordination, hand sewing, handcrafting, crotchet, hammock making, sisal work, pottery/clay works and pottery decoration.  The program runs in two shifts everyday for six months. Entrepreneurship and marketing strategies are part and parcel of the program for sustainable economic empowerment.

Senedu claims she has achieved a great deal but doesn’t call herself as a success. She defines success as setting up an organization and seeing it taking off without her being in the picture. However, she is proud of what VoA has achieved so far: over 40,000 people were afforded free medical service focus on HIV AIDS; over 2000 were skilled trained in arts and crafts and 26 of those graduates have been hired by VoA.  A good number of them started their own businesses some of them making more than 3000 birr a month. One graduate of this program has been hired as an instructor making 10,000 birr a month.

Senedu credits her parents and her upbringing that gave her the strength and the resilience in accomplishing her vision. She said her parents believed not only in academic subjects but also to be trained in skills that would make a person self sufficient no matter what; she says as self confidence is all about self efficacy and self esteem, she feels she is equipped with the necessary ingredients to face life at its worse.

Senedu takes a stock of her life twice a year: on her birthday and on the New Year. So as she reflects on what she has done one year, it came to her that she is very good at helping others but never had time to pursue her dream which was put in the back burner. She put one and one together and started VoA…as they say the rest is history.

After recognizing her efforts and dedication to make a difference, many individual contributors, institutions and donor groups supported her cause. Besides their support and encouragement, some institutions awarded her with various honorable accolades and prizes including invitation for collaborative work:

• L’Order National de la Legion d’Honneur, H.E President Nicholas Sarkozy, President of the Republic of France, November 2008.
• Honorary Daughter of the Blue Nile, Blue Nile Passage, Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem-NY, September 2007
• Lrmã Confreira Dama Grã Cruz de Justiça, Real Confraria De São Teotónio; Portugal, Fevereiro  2010
• Dama Comendador de Gracia Magistral, the Sovereign Military and Hospitaler Order of St. John of Jerusalem, knights of Malta, knights of St. John, Ecumenical; June, 2009.
• The National Minority Business Council, Inc.(NMBC), a 42-year-old nonprofit serving minority, women-, and veteran-owned businesses
• The Network Journal (TNJ), a leading U.S. business magazine for Black professionals and business owners

Her message to young aspiring women: Believing in oneself is very important; women need to be independent, to be good listeners, to question and analyze the pros and cons of their decisions and not to second guess themselves after they have made them…mostly wise decisions for we know what is good for us.

To work on personal and professional development; she says most people especially young ones seem to take shortcuts but life is about hard and honest work and trusting your ability to make it. She suggests being part of the solution and contributing citizens instead of asking others for a handout. To know ones worth and to appreciate others values and contributions are important messages she would like to pass on to others.

True to her vision of saving the future generation, VoA supports “JU90”, a youth led organization that serves as a practical and personalized alternative-learning platform. One of the programs – JU Fellow is designed to train and equip youth with professional development skills and place them with local organizations to promote the culture of volunteerism, foster personal and professional growth and address social challenges that face our community.

VoA provides mentorship services to the youth, gives them an insight to real work dynamics, helps develop their competency and work skills, and gives them a firsthand experience to issues faced in our community. In turn- these students promote the mandate of VoA by promoting VoA through social media, formalizing the registrar office, teaching basic conversational English, and learning life skill through pottery training.  By working with youth; VoA has proven to be a stellar example of how we can include youth in the nation building process helping youth to be innovative, creative and passionate in shaping our future.

Senedu is one of the founding members of AWiB and a lifetime member of YWCA Ethiopia.

AWiB thanks Senedu for sharing her experience and we applaud her courage to be exemplary leader of our community.

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