YIDNEKACHEW MOGESSIE

Yidnekachew is a vibrant, humble, passionate, volunteer leader in multiple initiatives. He is the general project coordinator, SRHR and safe abortion advocate, and trainer in SHEBA project. His vision is to see a gender-based violence-free society and to develop critical thinkers and leaders in global health across developing nations.

“A good leader must listen and develop higher emotional intelligence”

Q: TELL US A FEW THINGS ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY, AND ALSO YOUR LIFE'S STORY!

My name is Yidnekachew Mogessie and I just became a medical doctor at St. Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College. I was born and raised in Ethiopia, which is located on the horn (East) of Africa. The current population size of Ethiopia is approximately 104 million. After my cousin's death due to maternal mortality, I got the motivation to join medical-school to reduce the maternal mortality rate and improve women health. I began my journey in SRHRJ by being the National Officer of Reproductive Health including HIV/AIDS (NORA) of Ethiopian Medical Students Association in which I was able to organize and give SRHR training to the nearby high schools. After our workshop, we have seen the demand of Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) among high school students and how much it has improved there reproductive health, which motivated me to search for sponsors and partners to strengthen our CSE project.

Due to my team resilience and effort, we started the partnership with the International Medical Cooperation Committee (IMCC) with the support of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The vision of the partnership between Ethiopian Medical students and Danish Medical students is to create a long-term partnership and thereby improve the capacity of both organizations and carry out activities to create awareness about, improve and promote the reproductive health and rights among youth and adolescents in rural areas of Ethiopia. This partnership leads to the birth of Rex Crossley Award-winning project, project SHEBA.

Q: WHAT IS YOUR VIEW OF THE WORLD AS IT IS TODAY? AND HOW DO YOU DEFINE THE CONCEPT OF A BETTER WORLD?

From a medical doctor perspective, I see today's world as having a large discrepancy between developed and developing nations in health care, service delivery, innovation, and provision of youth-friendly services. Most of the challenges in health care are seen in developing countries like Ethiopia than developed nations.

To improve these issues we have to invest in medical education, capacity building training, and health entrepreneurship. That is why I'm currently serving as Senior Adviser for North and East Africa in Global Health Focus initiative. Global Health Focus is an international initiative with the aim of developing critical thinkers and leaders in global health.

Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE KEY CHALLENGES IN YOUR SOCIETY?

Reproductive health information and access to services are fundamental to the health, well-being, and opportunities for women and young people. However, millions in Ethiopia do not have access to quality reproductive health care. According to the 2016 Ethiopian Demographic Health survey, among Ethiopian women aged 15-19, 10% (5 million) are already mothers and 2% (two million) experience unwanted and unplanned pregnancy. The Federal Ministry of Health estimates that maternal mortality related to unsafe abortion represents 32% of all maternal deaths.

Despite the free provision of family planning services in public health centres, the lack of awareness and lack of quality services for high-school students who are experiencing unwanted pregnancy remains high. Furthermore, according to 2018 WHO Key Publications, the rate of HIV/AIDS has increased from 1% to more than 3% in major cities, including Addis Ababa.

Q: AS A YOUNG INDIVIDUAL WHAT ARE A FEW OF THE HURDLES THAT YOU HAD TO OVERCOME UP UNTIL TODAY?

Some of the challenges that I have faced so far include:

1.       difficulties due to lack of skills such as public speaking, leadership, and innovation.

2.       financial challenges to attend international conferences.

Q: WHY IS THE ROLE OF A MENTOR IMPORTANT FOR YOU?

Because it guides me to achieve my life goal, share very important life experiences so that I can learn from them, build my capacity to become a better leader of the world and, connect with other professionals which helped me to strengthen my initiatives.

Q: DO YOU HAVE A LESSON THAT LIFE HAS TAUGHT YOU AND YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE?

Yes, it is about the importance of servant leadership. During our project SHEBA two years ago, I learned a great deal about leadership. I realized that great leaders not only provide support but also, understand the “work on the ground” challenges as well. I regret that I was too removed from the on-the-ground tasks that I assigned my team members. Looking back, it’s clear that my team lost respect for me because I failed to acknowledge their obstacles and help find solutions. Ultimately, this led them to lose interest in delivering high school training.

After this situation, I started taking essential leadership skills training that helped me to develop my emotional intelligence, group dynamics, team building, and to be a servant leader. After the training, I gathered my former team and apologized for my lack of leadership skills. I promised them that I would lead by example and also, improve my communication. I started providing training with the youth models (peer educators), listening to them more (rather than always telling them what to do) and developed higher emotional intelligence to resolve conflicts peacefully.

Q: NAME A PROJECT, A FOUNDATION OR A PERSON IN YOUR COUNTRY THAT YOU THINK IS DOING GREAT WORK IN HELPING IMPROVE OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES!

Project SHEBA is named after the famous Sabian queen named Queen SHEBA in which Queen SHEBA is a public figure for women as she was one of the bravest queens among Northern and Eastern Africa that we want to empower Ethiopian women to be strong and self-confident women like her. It also stands for Sexual Health Education For better Awareness.

The goal of our project is improving reproductive health, gender equality, and family planning services among rural high school students of Ethiopia. As a passionate young volunteer leader of civil society organization who is currently serving as the project coordinator in one of the most successful youth lead Sexual and reproductive health Rights project, Project SHEBA, my primary goal is Improving sexual and reproductive health, decrease, in fact eliminate Gender-based violence, unwanted pregnancy and unsafe abortion in rural high schools of Ethiopia towards achieving SDG goal 3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well being for all including Ethiopian Youth), Goal 4 (Ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education), Goal 5 (Achieving gender equality and women empowerment ), and Goal 17 (strengthening global partnership towards achieving SDGs) through our SHEBA project.

Q: WHAT ARE SOME OF THE CHALLENGES THAT WOMEN IN YOUR COUNTRY FACE AND WHAT EFFORTS ARE MADE TOWARDS GENDER EQUALITY?

During our SHEBA project problem analysis, we came to the conclusion that the root cause of unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions, and other reproductive health challenges is gender inequality in relationships.

Due to Ethiopia’s cultural conditions regarding gender roles, young women and girls are particularly vulnerable in relation to sexual and reproductive health. This is especially true in rural areas. A variety of gender roles in Ethiopian society lead to decreased reproductive health, such girl’s not having the knowledge or skills to say no to sex, youth not recognizing the rights of women and girls, family roles that encourage or force girls to get married and have children at a very young age, and girl’s lack of decision making power regarding relationships and having children. In order to address these problems, the SHEBA project works with women empowerment, communication skills, gender equality, and human rights.

Q: ATHENA40 IS THE FIRST EVER GLOBAL SELECTION OF THE TOP 40 WOMEN FORWARD THINKERS, COMMENTATORS, ACTIVISTS, AUTHORS, ACADEMICS, ENTREPRENEURS, EXECUTIVES, INNOVATORS. CAN YOU THINK OF A TRULY INNOVATIVE AND FORWARD-THINKING WOMAN FROM YOUR COUNTRY THAT YOU WISH TO NOMINATE FOR THE ATHENA40 GLOBAL RANKING?

Bofta Yimam - She has been honoured for her work nearly every year in her career, including a Regional Emmy® award and the prestigious Edward R. Murrow award. Bofta is the first Ethiopian-American newscaster to receive an Emmy for her work.

For more than a decade, she’s reported live on the morning and evening news for TV affiliates around the country, including CBS and ABC. Today, Bofta is a CEO, Coach, and dynamic International Speaker. She recently spoke at several exquisite events, including the Global Thinkers Forum Gala in London, the Africa Trade & Investment Global Summit in Washington D.C. and IMTC in Miami. Event organizers praise her warmth, seasoned delivery, elegance, and savvy social media skills. As a coach and corporate trainer, Bofta works to help change agents and industry transformers craft and syndicate their compelling signature story so they can deeply connect with their audience, establish authority, create impact and transformation from the stage and on screen… while reducing the fear and anxiety of sharing their story to a group.

Q: SHARE WITH US A PHRASE, A POEM OR A STORY THAT YOU LOVE OR YOU FIND INTERESTING!

"A leader is like a shepherd. He stays behind the folk letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the others follow, not realizing that all along they are being directed from behind." - Nelson Mandela

Q: TELL US ONE THING THAT YOU HAVE LEARNED FROM YOUR MENTOR.

I have gained the necessary knowledge and skills from my mentor on developing my leadership skills, public speaking skills, application writing skills. Bofta Yimam is an amazing mentor who helped me to become the new FP2020 youth focal point for Ethiopia under the United Nations Foundation, recently accepted as a Youth Champion for the Youth Champions Initiative implemented by Rise Up with support from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to attend workshops that focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights, leadership, innovation, advocacy and project development.