My Adventure Begins

By -
By Mary Dubin
ENP Volunteer
Onward Israel- Boston
Jerusalem

Prior to my arrival at the Ethiopian National Project, I knew very little about the Ethiopian-Israeli community. I knew bits and pieces of their history through personal research and that a lot of the reggae music I like stems from Ethiopia. What I also knew for sure was that I wanted to help somehow, some way through my growing accounting background.  I’ve been searching to see what I exactly want to do when I get my accounting degree; so I figured, why not try the non-profit sector? I strongly feel that money should be used to help people help themselves.  ENP does just that; evolving, emerging and empowering Ethiopian- Israelis into the Israeli community.  During my short time at ENP so far, from day one, I have witnessed the mission of this organization is to help people become educated and strong so they can help themselves and then help others in their future, and so on.

Day one, a Thursday, was the beginning of something great! I met in a conference room with ENP volunteers from all over the States. We all got to know one another then began to brainstorm! We shared ideas from books about the history of the Ethiopian-Israelis to our blogs to taking everything we gain this summer from ENP back to our home universities.  Each volunteer had something to add and needless to say it was a wonderful first day; full of warm welcomes and bright ideas.


Although it is about a week and a half later, my first day at ENP was the beginning of an amazing adventure full of opportunities to learn, laugh and help others.       

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Roni's Story

By -
     Recently, Roni Akale, the Director-General of ENP enlightened the interns on all he has done to get to where he is today, in Israel, the home for the Ethiopian Israelis where they longed to live for 2500 years. Ron was born in a town near a City called Golda where he grew up in a Jewish family. His childhood was quite different than the average American or Israeli. For example, his school was a village where he would walk 34 kilometers both there and back everyday. When the school day was over and it was time for homework Roni had to depend on the sun for light. He then explained how he worked as a bookkeeper for 3 years. This was his life until his friend convinced him to go to Jerusalem.  At just 20 years old Roni began his trek to Israel. The travelers were unaware of how far away their village was from Sudan which is vital information considering getting to Israel from Ethiopia is done by going through Sudan. Even though this detail caused some panic, no...
Read more

Learning what it means to be an Ethiopian-Israeli

By -
Image
  June 20th - Natanel’s Story On Thursday, June 20th, the other interns and I had the privilege of talking to Natanel, an Ethiopian-Israeli medical student who is a part of the ENP community. Natanel told us about his family’s journey from Ethiopia to Israel as well as his personal experience growing up in Israel. Not only was it eye-opening to hear directly from Natanel about his story, but to see how ENP has made a significant impact on his career and success. Natanel’s family came to Israel in 1984, walking by foot from Ethiopia, through Sudan, to Jerusalem. The journey Natanel’s parents endured took 3 to 4 weeks to complete. Growing up, Natanel would always go with his mom to the doctor’s office to translate for her. Only speaking Amharic, his mom had great difficulty navigating medical appointments, so Natanel would relay information between his mom and the doctors for years. This routine inspired Natanel to go to medical school, as he fell in love with the medical world a...
Read more

Orly’s Story

By -
  Recently, ENP gave all of the interns the fantastic opportunity to hear a Dental student, one of ENP’s scholars, a chance to share her outstanding story with us. She started off by giving us the basic information about her dentistry journey; such as where she goes to school, how long the program is, how she knew she wanted to pursue dentistry, bad experiences in her career, etc. The 26 year old goes to the University of Jerusalem and is in the middle of her 7 year program. She explained how both medicine students and dentistry students have to go through 3 years of medicine school, 3 years in a clinic and one year shadowing a doctor in the field of desire. Orly shared how she always knew she wanted to help people, but didn’t know how she wanted to pursue this. When the art of dentistry got introduced to her she fell in love with it. Her father had diabetes, which caused her to study the facts related to diabetes and the mouth and soon found herself very interested in dentistry ...
Read more