Happy Ethiopian New Year, 2000

September 2000, Volume 1, Issue 1 FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD Since the 1950's, Ethiopian women have receded from participation on significant public agendas. The current results, which have been in the making since 1974, speak for themselves. The national quagmire indicates the absence of female sensibility, sensitivity, humility and wisdom. In 1993, a number of women, who are concerned with the relative deprivation of Ethiopian women from having a voice in matters that affect their destiny and well­being, got together to establish Adbar-Alliance of Ethiopian Women. Adbar was founded on the conviction that social life is complex and is shaped by many economic, social, cultural, and political forces, which cannot be isolated and treated as separable factors. As Ethiopian women, we need to realize that we have been among the most brutalized and victimized people in Ethiopian society, because of the mindless disregard for human dignity that started in 1974. When we try to address Ethiopian Women's, rights, lack of education, under education, disease, health care, economic, social, human rights as well as refugee/immigrants problems abroad, we must conclude that all are tied to lack of civil participation and democracy in our homeland Ethiopia. So we need to dedicate ourselves to these causes. A secure and peaceful environment in which people are free to mobilize their best human and material assets to realize improvement in their life conditions is a prerequisite for all people-centered actions. Adbar starts with the obvious. As Ethiopian women, whether it is in refugee camps in neighboring countries, in internal exile and displacement, in famine and economic crises, we fight harrowing abuses and carry a disproportionate share of the burden of our families' survival. Most Ethiopian Women who are in better situations seems less interested in taking the lead, and creating and pursuing an agenda to confront the situation that creates our human burden and suffering. Is it that our own life burdens are so great that we lack the time and energy to bother with the common good and our shared responsibility? Is it because we have been so marginalized in Ethiopian society that we no longer see a role for ourselves in the public arena? None of these reasons can justify our indifference. Mela is one of the many roads that Adbar has pursued to draw men and women to work together on their shared problems. Throughout Ethiopian history, our mothers had the wisdom never to relinquish social responsibility to the men alone. We seem to have changed over the last half century, and the results speak for themselves. Women did not willfully abandon their social responsibility; they were constitutionally pushed and shunted into the domestic, or powerless arena. Mela does not wish to open yet another avenue for infinite polemics on this issue of female absence and male dominance in the public agenda and its consequences, or for that matter to dwell on the misery created over the last half century. What Mela does hope to do is to encourage men and women to put their heads together in a disciplined way to pursue solutions to the extraordinary human problem whose genesis is well known to us all. The endless discussions and rehashing of life-experiences of the last two decades will not help solve our human problems. New visions and actions can. We invite all to challenge their ingenuity to create and share ideas and programs to address the enormous human suffering of Ethiopian women and their families. We hope Mela, the Adbar publication, will be a modest forum for the dissemination of ideas and information compatible with Adbar's human and social aspirations. Equally important, Mela should be a publication, which encourages Ethiopian women and girls' self-empowerment. We would also like to help the women and girls to develop their sense of self-worth, and thereby enhance their opportunities to lift themselves up by the bootstraps understanding ones responsibilities to self, community and society are among the building blocks of uplifting human experience. We urge our sisters to come forth and use this, their medium, to dialogue and cooperate with men in solving our age-old problems. Small beginnings can take us to great heights if we persist in our efforts.