The Eritrean Diaspora Scholarship Committee is excited to announce our 2022-2023 awardees. This is our fourth year of being able to impact the lives of Eritrean students positively, and we hope to keep it going for many more years. After careful reviewing of 45 applicants, nine were selected to receive scholarships of $2,000 each. Here are their stories and their expressed gratitude to our donors.
Halle Bereket
Halle Bereket is a freshman attending Emory University. She is deciding between majoring in History or Political Science on the Pre-Law track. She hopes to become a criminal defense attorney after law school. Halle is extremely grateful for the generous gift of the EDN community, which will help her further her education and reach the career goals she wishes for herself. She hopes to be able to give back to the Eritrean community because they have supported her in her aspirations.
Kisanet Gabreselassie
Kisanet Gabreslassie is a first-year student at Swarthmore College. She is undecided on her major and is hoping to use her first year of college as an opportunity to explore various fields of study. She is passionate about community and hopes to have a career where she is a change agent, working to combat the inequalities that marginalized groups face. She is enthusiastic about receiving this scholarship and is so grateful for the incredible work the Eritrean Diaspora Network is doing to support students in the Eritrean community.
Ariam Habtemariam
Ariam Habtemariam is a freshman studying mechanical engineering with a concentration in technology innovation at Boston University. The EDN scholarship will be used to help fund her academic endeavors, as well as her career interests. Ariam would like to thank the Eritrean Diaspora Network and its donors for supporting Eritrean students like her, and she admires EDN’s contributions to strengthening the diaspora. She hopes to one day use her pursuits in the design industry to give back to the Eritrean community and to build upon EDN’s mission in the same way that she has been supported.
Ariam Embaye
Ariam Embaye is a senior at the University of California, Davis studying Global Disease Biology. Her goal is to go to optometry school after her undergraduate studies, and she would love to work in community health one day. She is honored to have been awarded this scholarship and plans to use the funds to help pay for her optometry school applications and some of her tuition. She believes investing and educating the Diaspora is key to strengthening the Eritrean community. Ariam feels it is so motivating to hear all of the amazing things that her Eritrean peers are doing, and it encourages her to continue to do her best in her education and life.
Mal Mehari
Mal Mehari is a senior at Rutgers University majoring in Cognitive Neuroscience. He plans on attending medical school once he graduates to go into surgery with a focus on serving minority populations and the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Mal expressed that he is so grateful to receive the funds from the Eritrean Diaspora Network Scholarship. He will use the funds to pay for medical school application fees and to further his dreams of helping his community.
Milena Yishak
Milena is a junior at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities. She is studying Developmental Psychology with a minor in Public Health and hopes to become a Clinical or School Psychologist. This EDN scholarship will go towards tuition and educational expenses. Milena is the Vice President and a Founding member of the Eritrean Student Association (EriSA) at the U of M. She is very honored to accept this scholarship and further immerse herself in the advancement of the Eritrean Community. In addition, she is looking forward to connecting with the diaspora all around the world.
Temesghen Ghde
Temesghen is currently a postgraduate student at Harvard University pursuing his Master’s in Public Policy and Law – Joint Degree. His academic background includes an undergrad in Political science from UC Berkeley and a Civil Engineering background from EIT (Mai Nefhi). Temesghen is grateful for EDN’s scholarship award, and he will use his scholarship to pay his day-to-day academic and living expenses at Harvard. Temesghen said, “The fact that there is even an Eritrean community encouraging academic achievement by itself is priceless and an exemplary model.” Temesghen is passionate about improving Eritrea’s socio-economic and political state-building and strengthening our national unity.
Bethlehem Michael
Bethlehem Michael is a medical student at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine in the dual-degree Program in Medical Education-Leadership and Advocacy (PRIME-LA). Bethlehem graduated from UCLA in 2019 with a major in Biochemistry and a minor in Global Health. She is passionate about health justice and pursuing health equity for vulnerable and under-resourced communities, particularly through a career in primary care. Upon the completion of her third year of medical school, she will be pursuing her Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in Health Policy and Management. Bethlehem is immensely grateful to the EDN community for creating this opportunity for Eritrean students and to be a recipient of this scholarship. She plans to use the funds to support her academic endeavors.
Rita Tesfai
Rita F. Tesfai is an incoming Master’s student at the University of Chicago, studying anthropology with a concentration in postcolonial studies and African verbal art and cultural production. She graduated with honors from the University of California, Riverside. As an undergraduate, Rita conducted research under the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Research Fellowship and the Leadership Alliance, in which she formulated a project exploring how sound and performance function as mechanisms for social solidarity and liberatory struggle. She took a gap year following graduation, working in the art world of Los Angeles, acting as a Community Outreach Ambassador for the cultural arts organization Culture Gap. LA. She has also pursued personal projects of independent archival research.
With her interests in African sound cultures and performance studies, she’s cultivated a platform on social media called Afroarchive, which acts as a curatorial space, and a repository for African cultural production. This archival space maps the plural uses of African performance and art as modes of subversion and sources for poetic knowledge. She plans to continue her studies at The University of Chicago to explore Eritrean political histories and futures. The Eritrean Diaspora Network scholarship brings Rita a step closer to her academic aspirations, helping her with research materials and tuition costs. The scholarship also helps her interpersonally, knowing she has a supportive community behind her.
We want to express our sincere gratitude to our Scholarship Committee that worked hard to review applications and to our donors whose contributions are vital in helping us sustain this program. Thank you.
Onward and upward.