Ethiopian Outreach Guide for Organizations

Incorporating Cultural Understanding into Your Organizational Practices

Many of the best practices for organizations relate to cultural competency and understanding. We provide a brief overview in this section about some cultural aspects that can better inform your programming and strategy. The concepts here do not replace working with Ethiopian community leaders and organizations to achieve your goals, but rather provide ideas and areas where you can start your efforts.

Organizations are responsible for incorporating cultural best practices to better serve their community members in need.

How to Work Towards Cultural Understanding

Engage faith leaders and networks as messengers.

Faith is central to Ethiopian communities and culture. Religious centers and leaders may be a good fit to promote or share important social service or public health info.

Develop culturally appropriate marketing and outreach strategies.

Reframe potentially new or sensitive topics/programs.

Government programs need to be clearly described because the concept may be entirely new to the community member (e.g. unemployment systems, health insurance, etc.). Similarly, there are sensitive topics, such as mental health or domestic violence, which are not well-defined with Amharic terms and can be stigmatizing.

Engage faith leaders and networks as messengers

The vast majority of Ethiopians belong to three faith groups:

  1. Ethiopian Orthodox Chistanity
  2. Islam
  3. Protestantism

Different Ethiopian regions, and therefore the primary languages spoken there, are more likely associated with some religions as opposed to others. For example, people in the Amhara and Tigray regions are highly likely to follow the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. In contrast, communities from Oromia could be almost equally likely Christian- or Muslim- practicing followers.

In addition, most Ethiopian mosques and churches in Washington state will have a primary language they will serve. For example, one Orthox church might use Amharic as their primary language while another might use Tigriya. This is the same with mosques where the Oromo language might be more prominent. It is important to inquire and understand what language is primarily served at the church or mosque in order to reach the appropriate language group.

Starting Faith-Based Outreach

Consider which Ethiopian communities and their associated languages you are trying to target before reaching out to religious institutions.

Ask community members how they share or recieve information with other faith members (e.g. text chain or Telegram messenger in addition to paper flyers). You may ask someone to share your info on this platform and provide them with a gift card or small stipend for their time.

Interviewing, Filming, or Photographing Faith Leaders or Centers

Dress conservatively when visiting with religious leaders or conducting outreach at religious centers or places of worship. Ensure that your arms and legs are covered. When visiting Islamic centers or Ethiopian Orthodox Churches, women should make sure their hair is covered with a scarf.

It is best to have a connector, a person that is familiar with the religious organization/practices and your mission who can be a cultural translator and a bridge. This individual can help you navigate, for example, how to schedule time with religious leaders, how to best incentivize participation and overall break any barriers you might experience.

Use plain language, short and to the point (e.g. using bullet points instead of long paragraphs).​

Create a frequently used terms list and share it with your clients. Translate difficult or specialized words (e.g. medical, legal, public benefits terminology) in both English and in-language.

Photos from our conversations with faith leaders during the pandemic

Develop culturally appropriate marketing and outreach strategies

Symbolism
The Adey Adeba flower (also known as the Adey flower) is a yellow flower indigenous to Ethiopia. The color yellow itself is beloved and symbolizes peace and harmony. The flower only blooms in September during the start of Ethiopian New Year and represents hope and new beginnings.

Food & Ceremony
There are two main staples in Ethiopian households: injera and coffee.

Injera is a flatbread, made of teff flour and a core component of Ethiopian dishes. While some families make it from scratch, it may also be purchased from an Ethiopian grocery store.

Coffee is more than a household staple as it is at the center of a ceremony performed at social gatherings. The Ethiopian coffee ceremony includes roasting, grinding, and brewing fresh coffee for friends and family.

Marketing & Outreach Cultural Tips

Incorporate Ethiopian symbolism into your translated materials to make a bigger impact. Community members sincerely appreciate seeing symbols like the Adey Adeba flower on materials marketed to them.

Be mindful when using the Ethiopian flag or flag colors. Due to political and ethnic conflicts, the flag and its colors may represent painful memories and political affiliations for some community members.

Ask members of the community to provide or incorporate commonly used phrases into translations. A translation that matches the spirit of the meaning is more important than a direct word-for-word approach.

Consider reaching out to Ethiopian and East African grocery stores to share outreach or marketing materials. It is worth asking business owners about who shops at their store. Ethiopian restaurants might serve mostly non-Ethiopians. Just like other institutions/centers, each store might represent a specific ethnic group/language.

If you approach grocery stores, ask an Ethiopian community member to talk to the business about partnering together. Because these are very small businesses, provide a stipend for sharing or promoting materials.

Brainstorm how you could reach more people using commonly used products such as injera or coffee. Tesfa tested campaign stickers on these items but there will be other creative ideas!

A Symbol of Hope: Adey Adeba & COVID-19 Vaccine

The Tesfa Program used the Adey flower in our design to promote a “Get Vaccinated. Celebrate the New Year Together.” campaign in August-September 2021. We asked small Ethiopian businesses to put these campaign stickers on their injera, a staple in Ethiopian households. Each participating business received a stipend of $250 with a total of 6 Seattle-area businesses participating.

Translation note: While the English translation says “Get Vaccinated. Celebrate the New Year Together.”, our native Amharic speakers recommended a translation that was more natural and culturally appropriate for the community. Directly translated the Amharic writing says “Get vaccinated and celebrate the New Year together.” It is a small change but demonstrates the importance of having a community member review your work.

Tips for Surveying the Ethiopian Community

Surveys are frequently used in the U.S., however, they are less common in Ethiopia. This means that you have to be more strategic and culturally aware to get results.

In 2021, Tesfa managed to get 172 survey responses online and over the phone. You can read more about the data we collected and the survey design here.

Here is what we learned:

Use multiple-choice questions when possible. Given that many Ethiopian immigrants might not have a lot of experience taking surveys, questions using Likert scales, meaning numerical ranges or preferences might be more confusing.

Avoid or reframe questions that touch on sensitive cultural topics (See the next section for what those are).

Combine less culturally common categories under “Other” or let people self-identify either verbally or written out to avoid confusion. For example, keep gender multiple answer categories “male”, “female”, and “other” because other related terms are not defined in Amharic and other Ethiopian languages and fall under sensitive cultural topics.

Start your survey in-language and then translate it to English if possible. When you start in English you encounter issues such as the education system and names in Ethiopia and the U.S. not aligning with each other.

Have multiple community members review and test your survey for understanding and usability.

Get trusted Ethiopian community leaders to promote and share your survey for broader engagement. Younger community members may be more accustomed to taking surveys as compared to older ones so may need less encouragement.

Leave an option for participants to turn down a gift card or incentive. Older survey participants may only participate in your survey as a sign of respect for the community leader.

Give cash as a participation incentive, with the next best being VISA or Mastercard gift cards. Due to costs and restrictions, Tesfa provided store gift cards with Amazon and Safeway being the most popular choices in King County.

Outside of in-person outreach, texting your survey link is the best way to get more survey participants.

Faith Leaders Promoting Public Health

An Ethiopian community member told the Tesfa Program about the HIV/AIDs epidemic in Ethiopia. Getting tested was heavily stigmatized. To combat the stigma, the priests were publicly tested for HIV to lead by example for their congregation. This act encouraged church members to get tested. 

Listen to Priest Kesis Muluken and Sheikh Abdulaziz as they each describe how COVID-19 impacted their members and what they believe the role of faith is in getting vaccinated.

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Ethiopian religious leaders discuss the role of faith in vaccination and COVID-19's impacts on their congregations. Tesfa Program Founder, Selam talks with Sheikh Abdulaziz from the Ethiopian Muslims Association of Seattle and Priest Muluken from Medhanealem Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. Topics: COVID-19, Faith/Religion, Misinformation, Vaccination
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Find all podcast episodes here

Reframe potentially new or sensitive topics/programs.

Sharing Resources

Generally, immigrant communities are great at connecting with each other and using word of mouth to share resources with each other. It also means that there are set expectations of what resources are out there versus what may be actually available at the current time. Additionally, misinformation about a program may be shared across the community, discouraging people from applying for services.

Describing Government Programs & Systems

Break down descriptions of these programs to the most basic terms possible. Use the Who, What, and Why for each description. For example, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program could be described as the following: The government gives vouchers to low-income families to help buy food at the grocery store and have enough to eat.

Explicitly state upfront that social service program benefits do not need to be repaid. This concern was frequently expressed by Ethiopian community members in regards to unemployment benefits.

Know what incorrect info is being shared so you can develop a strategy to promote updated info. Regularly check in to find out what program or health care rumors or misinformation is circling around the community from direct service providers.

Community Sensitive Topics

Recent Ethiopian Conflict and Refugees
Due to civil conflict between the national Ethiopian government and the regional Tigray forces, there are refugees of all regional backgrounds displaced from their homes. This conflict may translate into disputes and hurt feelings within the local Ethiopian community. Additionally, it means that there may be more Ethiopian refugees as the conflict continues.

Domestic Violence (DV)
While DV exists around the world, it is not really defined and is not publicly acknowledged and discussed in Ethiopian communities.

Mental Health & Learning Disabilities
As a religious community, mental illness is understood through a lense of spiritual alignment. Seeking non spiritual resources for mental health care is heavily stigmatized in the Ethiopian community, especially for more spiritual families. As a community member described how mental health care is perceived: “Basically you are either crazy or not.” This perception may discourage people in need of therapy or support from seeking or being offered assistance. This mentality is similar when handling developmental delays or learning disabilities.

Tips for Framing Sensitive Issues

Describe sensitive issues as if the audience has no prior knowledge of the topic.

Ensure providers connect with any language interpreters before an event or meeting. Providing additional context in advance will allow the interpreter to discuss and think about cultural impacts and alternative translations or phrases.

Do not start with direct translations. The meaning of the translated word might not align with the community’s perception of the issue.

Try reframing the issue to make content about working towards something positive rather than addressing the absence of an issue. For example, addressing mental health issues could be about improving happiness or peace or fighting sadness.

Handouts

Tips for Starting Your Own Tesfa Program Model

Downloads

Organization Checklist

Tips for Starting Your Own Tesfa Program Model

Tesfa Program Founder, Selam Misgano

Direct Service Providers

Organizations

Decision Makers