December 2, 2011
Law students from Ethiopia learn as part of nation building
Some students go to law school because they want to build a practice in corporate, criminal or some other branch of the law. But five students who arrived from Ethiopia late this past summer are different: They want to build a nation.
“What I can do for my country is on my mind every day,” said Tesfahun Endeshaw, 23, who along with the other four students, expects to complete a master of laws degree in the late spring.
Five Ethiopian students are studying for master of laws degrees at the UW. From left, they are Aman Gebru, Medhanit Adamu, Addisu Dubale, Tesfahun Endeshaw and Million Lenjiso.Mary Levin
As Africas second most populous country (Nigeria is first), Ethiopia is one of the poorest nations on earth, long beset by drought, famine and war. About the size of Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico combined, Ethiopia has a population of about 90 million, 80 percent involved in agriculture.
As part of improving the lives of its citizens, the Ethiopian government is focusing more efforts on education. Also, Ethiopia’s gross domestic product increased at a robust rate 8 percent, while much of the world suffered another year of poor economic growth.
Securing land rights for citizens is a key to stabilizing and growing the nation, say Tesfahun and his fellow students. The UW School of Law, Haramaya University College of Law and Landesa, a nonprofit founded by UW emeritus professor Roy Prosterman, are working together to focus on Ethiopian land rights. Two of the students, Million Lenjiso and Tesfahun, intend to focus on legal issues related to land, health care and sustainable development when they return home.
Richard Wentzell, a 2008 graduate of UW School of Law, is dean of the Haramaya College of Law, which is in eastern Ethiopia. He and UW Law Professor Jon Eddy combined funds from a UW donor, the Ethiopian government and the Ethiopian community in Seattle into five full-tuition scholarships. University Rotary, in an effort led by Ethiopian-American member Ezra Teshome, also contributed money, and Teshome helped the students find host families.
Three of the students have been teaching law at Haramaya but dont have graduate degrees. Specialties such as health and intellectual property law arent taught in Ethiopian law schools, either. “At Haramaya, were developing our capacity, so we need faculty members to obtain advanced degrees,” Wentzell said in an email.
Ethiopia is a mixed-jurisdiction state, meaning it has both civil codes and some elements of common law based on precedence. This mixture means much work needs to be done on Ethiopian law, Eddy said.
Actually, said Tesfahun, making more Ethiopians aware that they have legal rights is a goal in itself. The son of a high school English teacher, Tesfahun is studying sustainable international development law.
Eddys connection to Ethiopia goes back to the early 1970s, when as a Ford Foundation scholar he taught at Haile Selassie University Law School in Addis Ababa. “I have a long and abiding affection for the Ethiopian people,” he said in a recent interview.
Eddy said Ethiopia, located on the horn of Africa, is strategically important to the United States. But even if it were not, the country is deserving of assistance “on simple moral principles” alone.
“Its enriching for our students to be in class with students from countries such as Ethiopia,” he said. “We have a lot of students interested in different types of overseas work, so the perspectives and relationships can be helpful in preparing for careers.”
For the Ethiopian students, Seattle has been educational in more ways than one.
Take doors, said 27-year-old Medhanit Adamu. In an Ethiopian home, knocking on interior doors isnt always expected; people simply walk in. Ethiopians also expect to know more about whats going on in friends and family members lives than typical Americans do.
Tesfahun sees the difference in simple things such as bus rides. He takes the #49 Metro between the UW and his host familys house on Capitol Hill. When walking to and from a bus stop in Ethiopia, its common to meet and talk with friends and acquaintances all along the way, but not so in America. Also in Ethiopia, people on buses or in line converse whether they know each other or not. In America, however, people dont usually strike up conversations with people on the street unless already acquainted.
In other words, theres less expectation of privacy in Ethiopia than in America. “But in America, theres more respect for human life,” Tesfahun said.
