Bridges Beyond Limits
Iman Shumburo is the Haile-Manas Academy Educational Research Intern and is a sophomore at Williams College.
In the summer of 2019, my family and I were on our annual trip home to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. I had just turned 17, my carry-on bag was packed with ACT prep work and my notes app congested with application essay ideas. We were on our way to the Addis Ababa Sheraton (Wi-Fi!), so that I could respond to emails from my college counselor, when we came across the cutest little girl standing under the grand statue of Emperor Menelik.
I will never forget seeing her in a worn out dusty red dress, slowly twirling an open umbrella, barefoot in the rain. As we sped past her, the stark contrast between her situation and my own made me think about the “Ovarian Lottery,” the belief that one’s fate is predetermined by the circumstances of their birth and that ultimate success is attributable to luck. For the rest of the way to our destination, I wrestled with what this could mean for the little girl—that the opportunities that I was pursuing might never be available to her.
Feverish pursuit of academic opportunity is nothing new for my family. In the 1950’s my grandfather studied mathematics and economics at Oxford as one of the very few students selected by Emperor Haile Selassie to promote advanced education as part of his Ethiopian modernization initiative. My baba was a brilliant man whose home was piled high with books and provoked curiosity in every conversation. He believed that there was no limit to what someone could achieve when armed with knowledge and this belief still strongly underscores our family values today.
My grandfather, Mohammed Sheriff, with friends at the University of Oxford in 1957.
Like their parents before them, my parents had access to prestigious academic experiences presented almost exclusively to students of both prominence and promise in Ethiopia. At 16, my mom was one of four African students awarded an academic achievement scholarship by the United Nations. Raised in a home where wiping a table became a lesson in geometry, my mom was infused with curiosity; if you look up ‘book-worm’ in the dictionary — her picture should be right there. She arrived at Freie Universität Berlin alone, without speaking a single word of German; even so, her love of science flourished and she soon began pursuing pharmacology and immunology.
But, limited paths back home kept many bright citizens from returning to Ethiopia after school and left many others’ minds untapped. My parents were some of the lucky few who were able to immigrate to the United States to pursue their professional careers, but to this day, too many Ethiopian students are left without equitable access to education and no realistic way to break through.
So when I came across the mission statement of Ethiopia Education Initiatives and Haile-Manas Academy, I was struck by how perfectly it echoed my family's beliefs. I saw my mother’s ambition in the bright-eyes of the young students in the welcome video, and reached out expressing my determination to be involved with the initiative in any capacity.
As the Educational Research Intern, I have interviewed many of the wonderful students, faculty and board members. By getting to know individuals at HMA and researching the unique place the school occupies in the history of Ethiopian education, I am helping develop the vision for the Teacher in Residence and Residential Fellow programs, creating an action plan for the Head of School that will develop a sustainable pipeline of qualified program applicants. My conversations have shown me how instrumental HMA is in forging a path to foster the change these students wish to see for themselves and Ethiopia, and how powerful individual drive can be when met with an equitable institution and a sensitive community.
As my internship continues, I keep returning to the poignant image of the little girl in the red dress and the overwhelming feeling of helplessness when I couldn’t, right there, share with her all the blessed opportunities my family and I have benefitted from. I am beyond grateful to work in the spirit of my baba, who would have been incredibly invested in the promise of HMA and proud to see me as part of a project that is committed to providing resources and support to those who may not have ‘won’ the Ovarian Lottery.