Yegna!

Our sitemate Lauren and I had a Girls’ Club that met every Sunday in my living room. We hosted female-empowerment discussions, activities, and crafts, one of my favorites being our Describe Yourself! game, with Amharic translations:

Mahlet is productive, caring, determined, supportive, fearless, kind, courageous, successful, intelligent, helpful, trustworthy, knowledgeable, patient, honorable, and a leader.

(Second favorite lesson = listening to Aretha Franklin’s "Respect," and discussing the message. In fact, if you have this song on your itunes, go ahead and play it while you read on.)

Because of schedule conflicts, translation pressures, the far walking-distance the girls on the other side of town had to travel (and in the hot weather), our club gradually stopped meeting.

A few months later: Just when I thought I couldn’t feel more anguish as a woman, every Peace Corps Ethiopia volunteer was given a cute, free tote-bag filled with Yegna stickers, Yegna pamphlets, and a flashdrive chock-full of Yegna material.

Meet Yegna.

Mimi

Lemlem

Melat

Sara

Emuye

(“Yegna” means “Ours” in Amharic.)

What I’d call the Ethiopian but role-model version of the Spice Girls. As a 5^th grader, I knew Sporty Spice was my equivalent. I was a tomboy, prouder of my skills as a second baseman and clean-up batter than I was of my grades or fashion sense. I remember taking my Spice Girls CD-insert to the hairdresser’s, pointing to Sporty Spice, and asking for her exact haircut. Along with my Backstreet Boys mini-books (each page a miniature fact sheet of each band member’s birthday, favorite meal, middle name, and hometown), I had one for the Spice Girls as well. I kept these in my school desk, somewhere near my pencil case and hidden NanoPet. At Recess and lunch, my friends and I would quiz each other from all of our mini-books.

Girls can make anyone their role models. But Lemlem is far worthier of influencing young girls than, say, Baby Spice.

Lemlem is a village girl. She tends her sick mother, does all the household chores, helps herd the cattle, raise her two younger brothers, and attends school to boot. Her father will remove her from school if she can’t balance all her responsibilities perfectly. How will Lemlem handle the pressures of getting an education and also managing her household?

Here’s how we find out:

Yegna, a real Ethiopian girls’ band, is also a fictional radio drama, following the different lives, struggles, and decisions of these five strong, beautiful girls—in order to address the pressing issues of what it’s like to be a young girl growing up in Ethiopia. Each one has her own separate and relatable story. (Each drama is followed by a talk-show, discussing the episode.)

So Lauren and I started our Girls’ Club back up. Every Saturday morning at 11:30, 14 girls in our community (grades 6-10) come to my living room, and we eat popcorn and cookies and listen to these dramas in Amharic, afterward discussing what we learn from them in Tigrigna and English. Fixing our previous mistakes, this time we chose girls who live closer to my home (girls from my Soloda English Club and also my neighbors). Betty, a 10^th grader, helps us with translation.

We’re taking the negative energy that builds up within us each week, when we feel degraded or objectified, and we’re turning it in a positive direction. We’re reminding Milyon, Betty, Firktuna, Makda, Birkti, Merhawit, Luwam G. and Luwam T., Netsanet, Tsege, Tsege-Berhan, Tsegareda and Seble how strong and gobez (brilliant) they are, because they’re not told it enough. We’re hoping to help shift how girls are viewed, and how they view themselves, in our Ethiopian towns. (Lauren has a second Yegna program at the main high school in town, reaching a much larger audience of both male and female students.)

The rest of the world should follow in the footsteps of the creators of this band and program, GirlHub (a collaboration between Nike Foundation and the UK Department for International Development) and start giving our future female generations better role models. Fifteen years from now, I’d rather hand my daughter the CD-insert of Yegna than I would Katie Perry or Miley Cyrus. Here’s something in which America would benefit in following Ethiopia’s lead.

The Yegna radio program is an incredibly practical, attractive and creative way to combat gender-based violence and address issues like early/forced marriage, dropping out of school, and teen pregnancy in Ethiopia. This is doing something for Ethiopian girls.

Check out Yegna’s great music video for their song “Abet”—(which is the Amharic response when you’re summoned). Read the powerful English translation below the video.

But before you do, you should know that the following is a common sight in classrooms, meeting rooms, and language centers in big towns and small towns across Ethiopia:

A teenage girl is called on to present in front of the class. She stares at her feet, she stares at the wall, she makes no eye contact with anyone. She giggles, she closes her eyes. Her right hand alternates from covering her eyes to covering her mouth, while she stands in paralyzing fear and silence for up to three minutes. The air has been sucked out of the room, and you, back there in your seat, are nearly trembling for her.

We see this all the time. Ours is a town of 60,000—not a village—and we see this all the time. A paralyzing shyness that was once valued by the social norm. Having this scene in your mind is important, I think, when you hear Mimi sing, We have stood up! We have decided! See us—here—we have come! How might these words of confidence fall on the ears of the many teenage girls I just described? What sort of growth may come from such powerful seeds?

Thank you, Yegna. Thank you, GirlHub.

Go.bez.

Video of Abet.

English translation of Abet:

Lemlem: “Abet!” Say “Abet to me,” hear me—Abet—I have a message—Abet in this house!

Mimi: “Abet!” Say “Abet to me,” hear me—Abet—I have a message—Abet in this house!

Melat: “Abet!” Say “Abet to us,” hear us—Abet—We have a message—We have a message about us!

Melat and girls: Abet—Ezih bet! (Call and response: Hello! In this house!)

Lemlem:

She is as a sister and a mother

As a wife—we should not be silent or take her for granted.

While one woman holds three lives

With love, supporting each other

Working together with understanding

Let us be one and live in joy

Let’s not be separated. Adera!*

* Adera is a pleading and heavy word to “promise/take care”

Mimi and girls: Let’s not be separated. Adera!

Melat:

Oh—let’s go out—Yay!—with our heads high

Oh—let’s show them—Ah!—that we can!

Let’s show our talent, capacity, and our wisdom

Let the world be amazed—let’s come together

Let us live together in love

People, let’s not be separated. Adera!

Mimi and girls: Let’s not be separated. Adera!

Melat and girls: Abet—Ezih bet! (Call and response: Hello! In this house!)

Mimi:

Who you underestimate/look down upon will will one day

leave you naked

Advise him and wake him up and advise him

Let him respect me—let me respect him—Let’s not look down on each other

Whenever, wherever, love shall win! Wa!*

*Wa! is a warning.

feat. Haile Roots:

Why should I lose her and be sad and hurt

While she has been by my side, my support in this world?

I don’t want to see her down and depressed because

she can’t find someone to support her

While I could be there by her side to support her

I have passed her by so many times pretending like I can’t see her [her needs]

But now it’s enough—let me stand by her side

For the world is not complete without her

Why should I lose her and be sad and hurt

While she has been by my side, my support in this world?

Mimi:

We have stood up! We have decided! See us—here—we have come!

Melat:

We’ve had enough of the past! We are rising today!

Mimi:

We have been looked down upon in the past

People have underestimated, undermined us

What we have had to endure—we do not like

We have risen today, we have decided

We carry love, skill, and hope in our hands!

Abet—Ezih bet! (Call and response: Hello! In this house!)

Haile Roots:

Why should I lose her and be sad and hurt

While she has been by my side, my support in this world?