Doctor Mehret

President Obama recently held a town hall meeting for young African leaders at the White House. I had the chance to meet one of the young Ethiopian leaders, Salsawit Tsega Ketema, that attended the town hall and spoke with her at length about women and entrepreneurship.

Salsawit is impressive. At 30 she is an entrepreneur, designer and businesswoman who started the Sel Art Gallery, a handicrafts business which employs 35 women in the making of home accessories. She also manages TAF plc, an import/export business with over 100 employees. Ms. Salsawit is a member of the Core Team of the Women Entrepreneurs Group (WEG) in Ethiopia and also happens to be the mother of a five-month-old baby boy. We talked about many things but what impressed me most was her keen insight and sharp grasp of what women need to succeed as entrepreneurs in Ethiopia.

In case you missed the town hall, I have posted it below:

For the last year and a half, I have had the opportunity to get a taste of government life as a White House Fellow. It has been an amazing life-changing year. Last month, I got the chance to share some of my early thoughts on the experience with none other than NBC’s Tom Brokaw. He was taping a segment for the NBC Nightly News entitled “Making a difference.” Check the video out below:

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Earlier this year I had the opportunity of appearing on the CBS TV show the Drs. It was the first time they were covering HIV/AIDS on the show and I was a guest expert. During the taping, I had the pleasure of meeting Reagan Hoffman, Editor-in-Chief of POZ magazine. Regan is a courageous woman with a story to tell. Please check out the video below to learn more.

The de facto frontline of HIV work lies in urban centers where teachers, preachers, and outreach workers are battling social context everyday. Last year, on this day, I was speaking about HIV in a church in Atlanta. This year I will be speaking about HIV with the youth of City Year in Washington, D.C.  In both instances,  the front line is the audience.

This is the same audience I have been listening to for the past two years since the release of All of Us as well as the audience that continues to find me through my work. From Addis Ababa, to D.C., to New York, to Philly, to Los Angeles, I have been inspired by the many emails I have received from  front line workers.  So first and foremost, I want to say - I hear you and I am with you!

In preparing my comments for the good people of City Year I thought it would be a good idea to check in. I know I have been neglecting the blog - but trust I have been busy in D.C.

The theme of World AIDS Day 2009 is Universal Access and Human rights. Both issues are about the front line. Human rights hinges on three principles: indivisibility, agency, and accountability.  All three are also important for innovation.

I think the next wave of HIV front line work must focus on innovation. This is the message I will bring to the good people of City Year. I have been blown away by TruthAIDS volunteers that have devoted their creative energy and time to help push front line work along and I believe that are many more innovators out there who want to get involved.

So what is innovation about anyhow? According to John Kao, the author of “Innovation Nation”, innovation is “applying work ethic to a dream.” I love this definition and I think it applies directly to front line work. The teachers, preachers, and outreach workers in urban centers are working everyday to make the dream of a better America a reality. Health equity is central to a vision of a better America. The distribution of health matters for the opportunities available to the citizenry.

In closing, on World AIDS Day 2009, I salute all front line workers and encourage all nascent innovators to join the front line. Aint nothing like it.

Those of you who have been following my blog know all about David the Piano Player, the film project I have been working on the past two years. Well, I was able to do this as a Robert Wood Johnson Health and Society Scholar which is a program in the human capital portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The RWJF is the America’s largest philanthropic organization dedicated to improving health and healthcare.  They invest in many great projects but they also invest in people, hence the term human capital.

I am incredibly thankful to the RWJF for allowing me time and space to think, dream, and be creative about health. Not having to worry abou a salary for two years and have protected time to continue to do ethnographic work has been critical for my career and for stregthening TruthAIDS.  I am sure my upcoming Washington D.C. move would not have been possible without their support.

That said, RWJF just posted an article about me and David the Piano Player for their website. Click here to read.