Podcast Interview with the 2024 Salwa Harb Award winner, Seblewengel Belete
By Woinab Tamerat, WI-HER Gender, Youth, and Social Inclusion Advisor
Born in Ethiopia, a country where educational opportunities are often reserved for boys, Seblewengel Belete’s early life was a testament to determination. From a young age, she confronted the harsh realities of gender inequality, fighting tirelessly to pursue her education alongside, and often in competition with, her male counterparts. This early struggle not only shaped her character but also defined her life’s mission: to ensure that no girl would have to endure the same hardships she faced.
Learn more about Seblewengel’s story, and how she went from rural Ethiopia to a Princeton University graduate, in a podcast interview with WI-HER’s Woinab Tamerat. “Before I started my journey as a professional gender expert, I had that thought: I have seen my mom and her struggle and I have seen those girls in the rural Ethiopia when I was a teacher and then, when after I came to Addis again, even though the context is different, I have seen the challenges that the girls went through, and their mothers went through,” Seblewengel shares about her journey in the podcast. “That was my inspiration, my life experience, my mum’s, my community, and the experience that I have got from my educational journey, as a teacher, was my inspiration to see, to dig more about what… gender inequality looks like in Ethiopia.”
Seblewengel’s conversation with Woinab goes beyond Seblewengel’s story as the two discuss how inequities impact women and girls, and how working in equity can pave a way forward beyond theory and into action. Seblewengel’s story is one of overcoming adversity, pursuing excellence, and dedicating her life to uplifting the voices of women and girls, which is why she earned the 2024 Salwa Harb Award from WI-HER, which recognizes her work in advancing the rights of women and girls.
We invite you to listen to the conversation here:
Transcript of the podcast interview with Seblewengel Belete
Podcast participants:
Woinab Tamerat (WT)
Seblewengel Belete (SB)
Woinab Tamerat: Welcome to our podcast. On this podcast, we sit with various people to discuss selected topics. We invite you to listen and share your thoughts in the comment section. Thank you everyone for joining. I am Woinab Tamerat, and I am the Gender Equity and Social Inclusion manager at WI-HER, specifically work on Ethiopian transforming agriculture activity. It’s a five-year USAID activity. Today, I’m joined by Seblewengel Belete, who is a winner of the 2024 Salwa Harb award. I look forward to our conversation.
WT: Seblewengel is joining us from New Jersey. I’m also proud to call Seblewengel one of my closest friends. Thank you so much for joining us, and we appreciate you giving us the time to do this podcast. Tell us a little bit about yourself, your childhood, and who is the most influential person in your journey, just to start up our conversation.
Seblewengel Belete: Thank you Woinab. Thank you WI-HER for having me, and also for that prestigious award. I’m so glad for that. Thank you very much for the entire thing, for making that happen, and for selecting me to be taking that award. I’m so glad for that and going forward in our conversation, you can call me Seblew, because I mean I feel very formal when I’m being called Seblewengel. It’s okay just to have that… It’s okay if I’m being called Seblew. So to respond to your question, I was born and raised in a small town called Weliso in Ethiopia, which is like 150, 114, sorry, kilometers far from Addis, and I was being raised, born there, raised there, and I went my elementary and high school there and was my childhood. There are a lot of people actually who put their fingerprint, and I was calling them as role model, including my parents, my mom, my dad, my siblings, my community, all of those people had a great contribution for me to be here today and to see my journey where I am today.
SB: But mostly specifically since my background was focusing on gender and also my aspiration to continue working on gender, I would like to mention who are—who was the most influential person in my life. As I said, it was my mom and my dad has a lot of contribution and my childhood and my journey and for me to be here today, along with my community. But specifically, my mom is always my biggest role model because she was the one taking that responsibility against the gender and social norms. In Ethiopia, women are usually responsible to taking household responsibilities and household chores and a father are supposed to be responsible to be a bread winner of the family or earning that money. But in our household, that role was the other way around. My mom was a breadwinner rather for the family and my dad was, on the other hand, was providing those caring support to the family, and I was growing up seeing my mom having that life struggle in order to fulfill all the basic needs of the family, including myself, and she was always in my mind as role model, and I was a bit kind of I would say positively deviant for the community gender and social norms, because all the figures that I have in terms of the gender role is my mom. And I was growing up aspiring, I could be responsible and I could be a breadwinner of my family but I’ve seen the challenges that my mom went through trying to deliver for the family because she didn’t have that much good educational background and she was working in one of the government office at the most lowest level position and she has been telling us it is because she didn’t finish her education that she had this challenge as she was not promoted for the bigger positions, or she was not able to have the big positions and she was struggling in terms of having the big position and also delivering to the family because the money that she earned was very small and my dad’s job before—-he was retiring early, but before he was retired—he was working with the government in the military service and his retirement money was so small and that was not really enough to fulfill the needs of the family.
SB: So she had a lot of struggle for that, and I have seen that the struggle of my mom, even though I have that positive image that woman could be that responsible to the family in terms of fulfilling the family need, at the same time, I have seen that my mom’s struggles in terms of bringing money and fulfilling their family needs in terms of—we were six by that time, myself and my siblings, including my dad and also my grandmom—-all of those lives were a lot for her to fulfill and I have seen that and I was always telling to myself: Okay, it’s possible to be responsible for the family, but at the same time I should be someone who are really educated, who are really able to fulfill the need of the family without any struggle and that thing could be only achieved, from my perspective, through only by education, so I was dedicating myself for my education, taking my mom’s role model in the negative and positive aspect of the life and, I would say she was the biggest role model in my life along all others who contributing positively.
WT: Such an inspirational mother is a great blessing. You did not only learn from her strengths, but you also learned from the challenges that she was having, so it is really an insight into how you can be inspired not only by someone’s success but also their challenges and the struggles that she had to go through to provide for the family and do everything as a mum, she is expected to do. As you said, it’s not such easy to become a woman breadwinner in our country as a developing nation. Just to give some context for our listeners. It is not easy to have such type of strong women who are doing everything they can for such an extended family, while supporting their kids and their husbands, so it’s great to hear your part of the story, and it’s great to hear your inspiration and role model.
WT: Just to continue with our conversation: How do you describe your professional as well as academic journey starting from being born in a bit of rural community and now being a Princeton alumni. So, how do you describe this staggering journey that you have had in your life?
SB: Reflecting back… it was a long journey to come here. It is just recently I started to thoughtfully reflect how did it look like my journey, starting from since childhood, and being here at Princeton, one of the world’s most prestigious university, and being a graduate of Princeton, which is something that most of us aspired to be in.
SB: So my journey started, as I was saying, during my childhood. I was studying hard to achieve because I saw the challenge that my mom went through and I didn’t want to repeat the same life that my mom had. I had that positive aspiration, at the same time, I have also learned that from her, her challenges. So I want to have that balance in life. So I was being dedicated in terms of my education and my early work experience. I started my journey as an elementary school teacher, because during that time my education enabled me to join one of the teachers’ training colleges, and I… graduated by diploma as a teacher and I started my journey in one of the most rural areas in Ethiopia as elementary school teacher, and there I’ve seen the challenges that girls went through in terms of coming to the school even to be able to act in the school on a regular basis.
SB: I saw their challenges. There are so many challenges they went through, in terms of taking care of a lot of responsibility with that early childhood experience and also passing through all the challenges as they grew. For example, early marriages was one of the problems in the area in the school where I went to teach those girls, and also sexual violence, sexual abuse, during their journey to school because at least to the minimum, round trip, they have to come and back to their home—a minimum of several kilometers or even more, so that was a long journey for them to get into school. And also taking the responsibility, for example, fetching water or looking after the small sibling as a household, it was their responsibility. So even though they have all that great ambitions to be in school, but things were not easy for them to be kept in school and to continue their education.
SB: So that was my lesson that put even more meaning—a meaningful Journey for me to continue on my early childhood education that I should be a better version of my mom or I should be a better version of our parents. That was one lesson. And the other thing I remember, I didn’t meet that lady after that, but I remember when I was working in that elementary school an organization called World Vision was doing an… educational program and one of the lady from the World Vision came to our school to have a partnership and I was being assigned to be focal person of my school to work with World Vision and I was so inspired by that lady.
SB: She was a young lady. She was maybe back three or four years younger than me, but she was being my inspiration, and I was so inspired by the things that she was doing in that community and their program in everything and I was asking that, what was your education for you to be here and for you to lead this kind of program, because that was a great inspiration for me that give me a meaning at the same time. Okay, it could be possible that instead of—I really like my journey as a teacher, but at the same time I need to do something different to the community, like leading a community project or working with the community in different kind of community initiative.
SB: So I was asking and she told me okay, ‘I went to… University, I was studying sociology, and if you want to lead the same kind of program or if you want to join this kind of organization, you can go about this and you can continue your education.’
SB: That moment was kind of sparkling for me. From then on, I was just being immersed in that idea and I was thinking the whole idea how it is possible for me to go on this way to continue my education. So the place where I was, was a very remote, rural area and there was no communication. It was really hard to send your application, CV, and everything. Anyway, I managed someone to apply for me in one of the schools in Addis to be a teacher and then for me to continue for my education.
SB: So after one year of service in the rural community, north Ethiopia, I was being able to be selected in one of the schools in Addis to be a teacher in elementary school and I came to Addis, and then I joined Addis Ababa University from the extension program to continue my learning, as I was being told by that lady, sociology and social anthropology department, I was being registered and… then at the same time I had also the opportunity from my school to continue the summer educational program to upgrade—because my educational certificate for the teaching was diploma, so there was a possibility to upgrade if you are selected so I got also that opportunity and at the same time, during the summer and extension programs, I was able to join Addis Ababa University and continue my education in sociology, and social anthropology and the other degree was in education. That same year, I completed and graduated from Addis Ababa University and I immediately joined the master’s program… at Addis Ababa Unviersity, that’s where we met, with you, Woinab, in 2010.
SB: Then, during that whole time—it was five years, I was continuing my education and inspiring girls and … doing small projects that I can do within the school community, and after I joined Addis Ababa University in the Master’s program, school of social work, I was being able to graduate after two years and then I was joining the development and humanitarian sector to achieve and to do more about my dream and aspiration to work very deeply and closely with the community with different projects both in development and humanitarian program.
SB: Since then—it was 2013, after my graduation—I joined one of the local NGOs in the refugee camp, then after three months, I joined IRC International and.. then I was continuing working with different organizations, including Care International and Mercy Corp in different projects, which I’m really proud of today in terms of being involved with all those projects in bringing a positive impact for the local community, the refugee communities, IDPs… different types of community focusing on gender, gender-based violence protection, and other social inclusion aspects, which I’m really proud of. That really was my inspiration during my—this 12 years of journey working as a development worker in the community and then there was an opportunity came to… Mercy Corps.
SB: Princeton wanted to have a partnership to take a workers—professionals who are in the mid-career position and also to have the opportunity to be part of the Princeton community, to be studied at Princeton in Masters in public policy program, which is really aligned with my early aspiration and also the thing that I was continuing working. I was so inspired by that and then I was applying to the program and it was like hundreds of us were applying internally first with Mercy Corps and 10 of has been selected during that time. It was 2022. Yeah, but no, it was 2023, to be a 2024 batch and then 10 of us has been allowed to apply to Princeton and by that time it was their first initiative between Princeton and Mercy Corps, but it was only me selected for that program, and I came to them as to continue my education and then I had a ten month program in Masters in public policy and I’ve been graduated recently, end of May, two weeks before so how it looks like in short, my journey.
WT: Here you go everybody. Seblew is living, working proof that you can start your journey anywhere, in the most rural town in Ethiopia, and you can definitely end up in the most prestigious university in the U.S. So thank you for being such an amazing inspiration. You’ve always been it—you’re still my biggest motivation and inspiration personally. I can’t believe it’s already been 14 years since we met, as you were saying. We both joined the postgraduate program at Addis Ababa university 14 years ago. Since then we’ve become the best of friends. She has been my maid of honor, we’ve always been in each other’s lives. I really appreciate your journey and everything that you have done for our community, and you continue to be the biggest inspiration.
WT: I know you live and breathe gender equity so my next question is that: what is gender equality and equity, as well as empowerment, means for you? Just to hear it from your own perspective.
SB: Yeah, I was like… since I joined the international sector and then governmental organization sectors, my journey started by doing the GBV work and gender based violence response and prevention, which is the most prevalent in Africa I would say, specifically East Africa, where we are located. I started at my journey in refugee camps.
SB: Before I started my journey as a professional gender expert, I had that thought: I have seen my mom and her struggle and I have seen those girls in… rural Ethiopia when I was a teacher and then, when after I came to Addis again, even though the context is different, I have seen the challenges that the girls went through, and their mothers went through. That was my inspiration, my life experience, my mum’s, my community, and the experience that I have got from my educational journey, as a teacher, was my inspiration to see, to dig more about what is gender inequality looks like in Ethiopia, what has been the challenges that woman and girl passing through. Not only women and girls—there are also challenges of course for men and boys, but we usually refers women and girls because the inequality puts a lot of burden for women and girls, and they are the one mostly affected disproportionately by the existing gender inequality in Ethiopia.
SB: So the dimensions are so many, but you can like, thematize or you can put a frame to understand from the different perspectives that make as for your understanding, you can see that from access to resource perspective. For example, who has more access in the community, who has more power in terms of accessing and deciding on those resources in the community, in the household. That difference is really visible. You can see the policy arena or the regulation and frameworks, and who was the one deciding on those frameworks and regulations in Ethiopia and whose eyes was really put on those in terms of framework, in terms of putting the legislation and laws in the policies and how by us those policies you can really see how it is being influenced by… usually the patriarchal kind of attitude and patriarchal kind of perspective and you can also see from the type of perspective who has more access to education.
SB: What are the challenges for girls or boys? You can see those differences. Yeah, so different issues that you can identify in the community as a challenge like—you can put economic perspective, you can put access to resources, you can put the policy arena, a cultural perspective. All those things, if you do the experts analysis, it is clear that women and girls are really the ones who are being disadvantaged in our community. And there’s a wide need… the most appropriate support or the most appropriate design program in terms of narrowing those barriers. So from—I don’t want to put this perspective in terms of the most expertise, because I mean, there are other… gender experts who also have access to this podcast.
SB: But when we talk about equity and equality, equity is the way that you are paving the role for women and girls to have that access or to have that entitlement for their rights. We are always talking about the gender equality and the right for women and girls, men and boys’ rights. The opportunities are there. But unless we understand the barriers, in terms of accessing those rights, in terms of those issues, put us equally for men, women, boys, and girls, we are not able to do or able to work for women and girls to access those things.
SB: So when you are putting those lens in your perspective, you are talking about equity, even though we are saying equality. Equality means that everyone has access to right, everyone has the right to access all the rights to determine their life. But if you are not working on the barriers before you cannot talk about that or women or girls are not able to access those things. So when you are bringing that perspective that means you are talking about the equity lens or the equity perspective.
SB: Equity means removing the barriers for someone to access that right or to reach through that equality lens, or equality perspectives that we are talking about. So that is how I have seen those issues in Ethiopia, and that was also the most critical perspectives that we were trying to put in our work, intervention, in any kind of innovative ideas, projects, when we decide when to Implement. Always we give a training for our staffs to understand this properly, what is right, or what is gender equality and what are the barriers. What do we need in order to address those… barriers? So how can we bring out the issue of equity or the perspective of equity? So those are the basic principles that everyone understand or knows and that was how I was thinking and leading our staff and our programming in the community for involving partners in our project initiatives.
WT: Definitely. These are not only a work or an academic topic, but these are the things we always talk about when we spend time as friends, starting from our own experience, our own academic journey, professional careers, and personal encounters. These things are not just theories, but life encounters and experiences as well as challenges for so many women and girls around the world. When we talk about equity, equality, and empowerment, most of the time–especially in developing nations such as ourselves, in East Africa, and so many places in the world, it’s somehow misunderstood but it’s a reality and a day-to-day struggle for so many women and girls around the world. So, it’s, once again, great to have your insight into these issues.
WT: On a related topic, how can we invest in women and girls’ futures to improve their lives and minimize the ongoing burden that they are carrying based on your so far experience and your own personal challenge? How do you see investments should be done by organizations who are in development and who are doing the work in so many contexts, such as our own WI-HER. We specialize in inclusion and gender equality. So how do you see this investment should be done on a bigger level?
SB: Yeah, organizations like WI-HER and also other similar organizations, what is the most important aspect in terms of promoting gender equality and social inclusion [GESI] is being thoughtful and intentional about this GESI work. That also reflects at different levels, that would start from the political will from the leadership. So what does that mean, political will of the leadership? It’s always gender. I mean, the things that we have seen mostly for kind of fulfilling, a political checkbox usually, organizations has a gender expert. Organizations have someone to work on gender, but those people usually are in confusion, because they don’t have appropriate support or they don’t have a political buy-in or support from the leadership. Unless the leadership is really supportive, the work for what we are doing, it is really hard and everyday struggle for the gender person to work or to promote gender equality. And also I believe that gender is crosscutting. It is not like just for saying that we say always gender is crosscutting. It is because we are touching—sorry?
WT: You are preaching to the choir! I can not hear enough of this topic, as you know. Please continue.
SB: So yeah, when we say crosscutting it’s not just to say like, as something that we want to say always. It is real. It’s crosscutting because we are touching every aspect of the life of women and girls, and boys and men, right? It’s not only specific single things that would improve the lives of women and girls or other vulnerable community. It should be addressed and touch in every dimension. For that to happen, everyone involved in it, including our staff, including our donors, including our leaders, the community partners, the government, the decision-makers, those who are working with us, everyone should be aware what we are doing and also put something positive—a positive contribution for that thing we are doing. If that’s not the case, the goals that we are having in terms of gender equality, won’t be achieved.
SB: So for me, as a start, the most and basic thing to achieve gender equality is the buy-in and the political view from the leadership, and that it will go down up to our field level staffs, our partners, our volunteers, all involved in our projects. So once we have that and once we have the proper expertise in the room and also have a budget and resource allocation for the work that we are doing, that would be really helpful to promote our issues in terms of gender equality and social inclusion.
SB: But the other things that I see from most other organizations, they have a kind of silo approach in terms of promoting gender equality. What does that mean? That silo approach for me is both organizational transformation and transformative programming should come together. If we are working only in our programmatic aspect in terms of GESI inclusion or GESI incorporation, but if we’re not working on organizational transformations that is working in our staffing, how transformed our staff are, how our system in operations are inclusive in terms of promoting gender equality and social inclusion, it won’t be possible to achieve our goal and our dream.
SB: Anyway, at the end of the day, it’s our staff who are promoting and delivering our programs. If we are not transforming our staff, how does that will be possible to achieve our goal in terms of promoting gender equality in society?
SB: So this silo approach shouldn’t be the way that we are following. We should have that combined kind of approach. One thing—one way to promote organizational transformation from gender diversity and inclusion, to have that inclusive and welcoming environment, to have a discussion and reflection around gender, everyone to be aware about gender equality, and then the gender experts who have the support from all those involved from the program and operational aspect in terms of promoting gender equality and social inclusion.
SB: The other aspect is the programmatic aspect. For the programmatic aspect, one thing we have those experts in gender equality and social inclusion, and then proper allocation of budget, strategies, resources, and tools and also continuous reflection, continuous capacity building for the gender staffs and M&E staff and other project staff is also needed.
It shouldn’t be stopped there. We are working our work with different partners and stakeholders, right? We have bigger government stakeholders, we have private actors, we have community volunteers, community leaders. Also, across those different levels should have the proper understanding, should have the proper tools, strategies, in terms of promoting gender quality and social inclusion. So if you can imagine, that if every organizations are doing this way, and also if you are influencing positively the government work, and if the government agencies are having this kind of capacity building in them, maybe take some time, but you can see that positive contribution and the fruit of your work in the community so that we can empower our community.
WT: Thank you. As you were saying before, you are preaching to the choir. These are the challenges that we have to deal with on everyday basis. Just for example, last week, I was talking with the ETA leadership, the importance of being inclusive, the importance of being gender transformative, organizationally, otherwise we won’t be able to do that for the community that we’re working with. So that’s the first assignment that we have to take on as a gender-focused organization–looking into ourselves, and doing what we tell others we do so that it’s reflected in the work that we do in the communities at the higher levels. So I definitely relate to all the topics that you have raised, programmatically and at the organizational level. If we are able to do the things in a way that you describe, it would be a dream come true for every gender expert. Of course that’s what keeps us fueled and what keeps us going every day. Just a final question from my side–
SB: Maybe you want–
WT: Yes, please.
SB: One thing also I want to emphasize on this conversation is putting the community at the center is also–should be a critical aspect of promoting gender equality and social inclusion. Usually, we can use our expert mentality, and we go to the community with our expert imposition to implement what we believe is good for the community and that’s left the community behind—you cannot also have the collaboration with a community. The communities that you want to have that positive influence should be part and parcel of your project design and the whole aspect—the whole project implementation process in cycle. So that should start from the assessment and then goes to the project design.
SB: You may have some idea but you have to work with the community to have the idea reflected in the project and for them to see that the vision and the change should come from their side, and their idea of looking at positive change in the community should be reflected in the project design so that you can have that positive collaboration with the community and then you are working with them positively. And you can have that smooth kind of project implementation because there are always barriers when we are working in the community because you are touching the most sensitive thing in the community. You are trying to change those norms that existed for thousands of years ago.
SB: It’s not easy that you, as an expert go to the community, and saying that these things should be done and these things should be changing. And they make an attitude, who are you telling them to change that norms that have been existed for thousands of years ago.
SB: For that to be—as on the process, you should put the community at the center and you should have their perspective and you should bring the opportunity for them to see what are the negative…. social norms and what are the alternative ideas that the community has… I have a lot of positive things to put in the project. So you should give them that… forum, and they should be part of your project design and process so that it would be easy to work with them.
WT: Definitely, definitely. Putting the community at the center, I would say, would be one of the strongest sides of WI-HER as an organization. We have a methodology called the iDARE methodology, which puts, as you were just describing, the community at the center of an intervention, which collects stakeholders and community leaders to identify barriers and then come up locally acceptable and locally-led solutions, so that the ownership would still belong to the community itself, or the organization, rather than a developmental agent or partner who is going to be working there for a very limited period of time. The iDARE methodology, I would say would be very exemplary in this regard, giving the chance for the community to own the challenges, and to come up with the solutions that are very relevant and at the same time, applicable for their context, and cultures, norms, rules and regulations, that are not as such visible from the outside. So all these things put in perspective of one’s situation and one’s context will definitely contribute to the realization of gender equality. And so, this is once again another point that we’d like to stress on. Just to finalize our conversation, which I’m very much enjoying Seblew, my last question would be: what would you advise a young girl, or young professional, who is currently struggling to realize her dream? Just as you have been once in your life.
SB: Yeah, having—I mean, being thoughtful in terms of where young girls and young boys want to go is something that would put inspiration always in their life and also to continue on their dream, but we, as an adult community member, or at least young leaders in the community, who have more experience than those adolescent boys and girls, we also have, I would say, a responsibility to give back to our community and we have to show them where they can go and to what extent they can achieve. They should have their own aspirations. They should have their own goal in life. But at the same time, because of their limited experience in life and limited experience in the different backgrounds, they need some positive contributions from other community members, that includes us, that includes government, that includes different civic society organizations, groups in the community. So all of us who work for the young people, they are a generation to achieve their call, to achieve their dream. In the first place, to have that positive aspiration in terms of having that attitude that they can achieve, they can do it against all odds, even though the challenges–even if the road looks rough, but it’s possible to able to go and achieve the goals that they want to achieve in life.
SB: But putting that aspiration and putting that positive support in their life is really needed. So we can do two ways. We can show them there, we can show and we can give them the support that themselves to have their own idea and goals in life. And at the same time to have that backup and to have that positive support and contribution from every one of us and that’s what I would say.
WT: I would say that’s a great piece of advice coming from the person who have lived what you just described, having the inspiration, having the strength in place in working towards that goal.
WT: Seblew, it was a pleasure. Congratulations again for being a winner of the 2024 Salwa Harb Award of WI-HER and congratulations again for your graduation from Princeton University. I hope you know how much I appreciate you and I appreciate everything that you have done and everything that you have achieved in your life. I hope that you continue your journey working for women and girls, who really need your dedication and your commitments from any perspective and continue to be an inspiration for young women and young men all over the world. Thank you so much for the time and dedication that you have put into your work.
WT: Thanks for listening to the WI-HER podcast. Once again, I am Woinab Tamerat and I was joined by Seblewengel Belete. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments section. Thank you and have a great afternoon.