What’s in a name? What’s behind our name? 

When it came time to choose a name, my first thought was to find a word or words, maybe Amharic ones, that would brilliantly capture our high aspirations or core values. I wanted to experiment with words like “future” “innovation” and “excellence”. Alternatively, I thought we could choose a name that grounded the school in its location or alluded to its student body, and words like “summit” or “peak” (as in the beautiful mountains that surround our town) and “national” came to mind. For sure, my first instinct was not to give it our names. That felt like attention-seeking, and uncomfortably boastful. 

How then did we settle on Haile-Manas Academy? Jean and I have worked on the school in partnership from day one. We decided to use our names because we realized that we could, and should, model and reinforce the fundamental HMA values of enterprising mindset and community-mindedness by doing so. We want generations of HMA students to remember that this school was not conceived by a large NGO or a government entity, but by individuals who saw the need, decided to dream big, did their homework (a whole lot of it), then set about with focus and persistence to make it a reality. Moreover, we realized that highlighting us as individuals was especially significant in the context of Ethiopia. In the course of working on this school I have interacted with so many new people and communities, and I have come to appreciate that I really am a role model: as a woman, as an Ethiopian, as an immigrant whose family rebuilt a life from scratch, and finally as a member of the Ethiopian diaspora which is only recently coming of age and finding its way. Jean is Greek-Armenian from Turkey; he too is an immigrant who comes from a modest background. 

The name “Haile-Manas Academy” emphasizes, I hope, that this groundbreaking project was initiated by an Ethiopian-American woman, working with her husband and other like-minded individuals, several of whom are immigrants, for the purpose of serving others and bringing about change.  That’s powerful, and well worth swallowing my discomfort for.