My Experience in DOT

By Yared Beneberu, DOT Ethiopia ReachUp! Participant and Volunteer

My name is Yared Beneberu. I graduated in bachelor of Law (LLB) from Bahir Dar Universty. I have been working as a community mobilizer at Benishangul Gumuz Regional State Sherkole Woreda Community Mobilization and Information Office for about 2 years (2007-2009).  I experienced a lot of hardship in the region. I was working with and in the community on several projects like building clinic and roads and facilitated polio campaign in collaboration with health office and the like. At the time when I was working at Sherkole, there was conflict that rose from resource utilization in the region and I experienced working in a situation where I and my colleagues often need to lay on a ground or hide under a rock not to get hit by a bullet. Then I get ill with malaria and the conflict was also getting worse that I come back to Addis Ababa where I inhabit.

Then I begin searching for a job and it took a while till I get one. Even though I was earning my living out of it, the job did not fit with me. In other words, It was not a career but just a job. On top of that it involved me in political issues that I had no interest in. These and other personal reasons of mine made me lose interest in what I was doing. I was not able to bear working in that kind of situation at all. It wasn't something that gave me the opportunity to work on my vision and develop my career. The work in general wasn't helping me become a better person. I quit the job and began searching for another one

Plus being unemployed, I was going through a very rough time of probably my whole life back then due to the reasons I don't want to mention. My internal emotion and chaos created a very tense negative energy that I was fighting with the people around me, whether family or friends. I think some people were even thinking that I was going insane at the time. I was a Law degree holder in Ethiopia, who had quit not one or two, but three well-paying jobs, and I was spending my time doing not really appreciated things in the society.  It was in this condition that I heard about DOT Ethiopia from a friend of mine. He explained me all about DOT's programs. After hearing what he had to say I was interested to be part of the program. I was hoping that it may change me and my future so I was eager for it. After some time, I heard that DOT Ethiopia's ReachUp! program would be started at the Ethiopian National Association on Intellectual Disabilities (ENAID) training facility, and I become one of the participants.

At the first day of the ReachUp! training I was surprised by how young the trainer was and I was also excited to see how such a young person could be able to deliver to me with what I was expecting from the program. For my amazement, the interactive and engaging approach of the facilitator with the smile on her face was very interesting and new for me. The very first parts of the training about self-esteem, strength, skills, passion, and pride story modules helped me to figure out and realize my strengths, weakness, interests, and passion. Develop your vision, choosing your path, finding your way and self marketing modules on the other hand helped me in setting goals for my future and to have a vision. Thinking like a business person, marketing basics, exploring opportunity and other modules also helped me to develop my business knowledge. Computer as a researcher, a library, project manager, designer/print shop, and showcase helped me develop my ICT knowledge and make me realize that ICT is the best way to search opportunities and give me a chance to make it practical. In general the program shaped me to make attitude changes in my thinking and showed me a new way to change my future.  The trainer, Banchalem Getachew, helped me a lot by listening what I have to say, offering advice, and supporting me outside class room and giving me different books to read too.

After I finished the ReachUp! Program I recognized that it's my passion to be a cause for someone's life to be changed, I wanted to participate more on DOT programs, share my experience to DOT program participants, and I wanted more experience from DOT staff. I decided to be a volunteer.  I talked to Wondwossen Mitiku, DOT Ethiopia's Business Manager. He is one of the most positive and reasonable persons I ever met. After asking me why I wanted to a DOT volunteer he gave me orientation about voluntary services in general and advised me how to become a good volunteer. I joined DOT Ethiopia as a volunteer in August 2011. Volunteering for DOT is giving me lots of exposure and experience. It helped me to identify what my career should be and where to start it. The experience I am getting from DOT is completely changing my communication skills by giving me a chance to speak in front of a crowd and meet new people. I realized DOT's program's has unique methodology and it indeed is what youth like me in Ethiopia are missing. It has a lot of potential to change youth and I needed to be part of it .

During my stay at DOT Ethiopia as volunteer I prepared DOT book pockets that help to remind a person to return the books he/she borrowed and keep track of the books. I created a network and facilitated to establish partnership between DOT and the Union of Youth and Community Development (UYCD), an NGO which is working with youth around Kechene (in Addis Ababa). Also I established the DOT Ethiopia Reading Club with the help of DOT staff. The main reason that I took the initiative to establish a reading club is that I saw the need to make people read more and share what they read and their knowledge to others using technology. The club currently has more than 50 members. It's an online club based on Facebook. Anyone who wants to be a member of the club can be a member just by sending a request to the club. It's only three months since the club was established but there are a lot of posts and knowledge sharing going on. On 16 Dec 2011 the club had its first round face to face meeting of members. As a volunteer I participated and gave support while coordinating events like a career development workshop at BarCump Ethiopia 2011, participated on different workshops hosted and facilitated by DOT Ethiopia staff members (Addis Alemu, Biruk Yosef, Banchialm Getachew, and Kalkidan Abera) and also co-facilitated the celebration of Global Entrepreneurship Week (GEW) at ICEAddis.

I am learning many things in DOT as all DOT staff are committed to their work. They work without needing any instruction. And I learned how to be committed, love my work and create ever fresh and best work atmosphere. There is best work communication in DOT that I haven't seen in other places.

I want to accomplish different things during my stay at DOT as a volunteer. The first thing is to make the reading club stronger in structure, members and books. I want to help the members become change makers in our society, make my experience practical in my life, help many youth as much as I can in collaboration with DOT staff. I also want to be a DOT Intern because I know it will give me more chance to change other young people's lives like mine changed while giving me wider opportunity to upgrade my knowledge in different levels. In addition to this I plan to have my own business which is on small scale mushroom cultivation.