Community day

Friday August 29 is the community day.  The entire CSC team went to St. Mary University (SMU)( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Mary's_University_College_(Addis_Ababa))  to give a workshop on career development.  SMU is a private college founded in 1998.  It has four campuses and about 6000 students.

The workshop orientation was hosted in auditorium.  65 students attended. The target was female students.  The workshop offered 5 breakout sessions on time management, CV development, graduate study abroad, interview skills and digital eminence.  I suggested the graduate study session, since I thought at least we can plant some seed of bigger and bolder dreams in these young minds.  With the help from Welela and Atig, the session went very well.  We discussed why and how to apply a graduate school, and shared our personal experiences in choosing area of study and how it has impacted our career and life.  Selam, a local translator for us who had just been admitted to a master program in a German University, share her most recent experiences.  The workshop was concluded with Q and A session and small give away prize for those were brave enough to speak up. Finally, the VP of the university delivered closing speech.

Below are some pictures from workshop.

Front gate:

The entrance of auditorium

 

Students settled down in auditorium.

The workshop program

The graduate study session, the west faced windows are covered by newspaper to block sun in dry season. About 40 students attended our session, all of them were accounting major.

 

The instruction building

The main campus, we visited, is about 3-4 acre maximum in area.  Two concrete instruction buildings, two small court yard, with 2 rows of one story structure for administration and facilities, including toilets.  Struck by stomach flu third time in three weeks, unfortunately, I had to became a frequent visitor of the toilet.  Through a wet narrow gap between two buildings, a row of porta potty sized toilet stall was to left, in a tiny yard.  The door was rusted thin metal sheet with holes.  The simple stall on the ground occupied 60% of the space.  40 % of the rest of the area was taken by an oversize plastic container used as waste basket places behind the door.  That means you have to made effort find a position not to interfere with the container and the wall et al.  There was no flush mechanism in toilet.  One had to use a cut smaller plastic container to scoop water from a water barrel, a big used plastic container, to wash the toilet.  Although it is not the worst kind I have seen, but for a higher education institution, it is stunning.