Help Amen go to College!
This is Amen Gabre, an amazing young woman from the Kafa region of Ethopia who recently wrote of her story in "Plight of Ethiopian Girls" , part of A Book By Me series. I know Amen because she is graduating from Scattergood Friends School near Iowa City and I serve on their School Committee so I have the priviledge of seeing the students throughout the year.
Amen has been in the U.S. for two years attending high school thanks to generosity of others. But though she will have a diploma from Scattergood, if she returns to Ethopia she cannot attend college there because public institutions will not accept a foreign diploma. It almost goes without saying that without an Ethiopian diploma or a college degree her future becomes extremely limited.
The good news is that she has been accepted to Calvin College with a partial scholarship and has raised nearly the remainder of tuition. What is needed now is the immediate tuition deposit due at the end of May! Please help her raise the deposit and stay in this country to attend college. Her dream is to become an attorney and return home to Ethiopia with a better chance of helping others. To use her words "...having a college degree will change my life, and affect the lives of those I choose to fight alongside back in my own community and around the world....I ask for your help getting through college humbly, and with respect."
We are humbly and respectfully asking for your help, and appreciate whatever comes!
In great gratitude,
Ruth Hampton
Scattergood Friends School Committee, clerk
More about Amen:
Read about her in an interview with Online Ethiopia.
She was a Yom Hashoah Essay Contest Winner with an essay titled “Living Memory: The Holocaust’s History and Ethiopia’s Future”.
From Deb Bowen, creator of A Book By Me:
"Young Author Amen Gabre from Ethiopia came into my life as a foreign exchange student for the school year 2015-16. Her family in Africa came from a region called Kafa, the land where coffee was first naturalized and then introduced all over the world. A freelancer, her father has translated the Bible into the Kafa language. While in the USA, Amen won first place in an essay contest in Iowa making us aware of a traumatizing experience in her childhood. As a child, she visited relatives in a small village where she witnessed four small girls being circumcised. She has never forgotten and has a burning desire to help. Today, this beautiful young woman wants to get a scholarship to become an attorney and work to help end this heinous tradition. She feels it's a human rights issue and a crime against the girls of Ethiopia. Her book entitled Plight of Ethiopian Girls tells her story. It is sure to educate people about this subject. Young illustrator Faith Mutum shares her beautiful art to this project and is proud to stand with Amen."