The drive to establish the Ethiopian American Educational Foundation, which shall be known as
the Ethiopian American Foundation (EAF), is to make a tangible investment in the present and
future generations of Ethiopians to live up to the demands of universal ideal of intellectual
excellence. EAF’s also supports academic integrity, academic freedom, and cultural and
political pluralism, qualities that have been the hallmark of Ethiopia’s institutions of higher
learning since their establishment in the 1950s. EAF is a non-political organization whose aim is
to help restore the multifaceted role of higher education in Ethiopia by bringing to bear the
collective effort of Ethiopians, Ethiopian Americans, Americans and friends of Ethiopia
interested in revamping the principal functions of higher education in Ethiopia. EAF shall serve
as a focal point to which contributions in ideas, time and resources from such constituencies
would be channeled to help strengthen Ethiopia's institutions of higher learning and enable them
to face up to the challenges of the 21st century. In pledging our best intentions and efforts to
these ideals, we pay gratitude to those who have laid the foundation and made indelible marks
for academic freedom and democracy in Ethiopia.
The basic rationale for EAF is to serve as an institutional vehicle for use by Ethiopians,
Ethiopian Americas, Americans and friends of Ethiopia interested in supporting higher education
by marshaling intellectual, financial and material resources for the purpose of making a
difference in tertiary education. EAF is particularly critical at this time. There are three reasons
for this. First, higher education in Ethiopia has been under dire straits for reasons that have their
roots in political, human capital, and financial factors. Many of its faculty and students have
suffered from years of attrition and instability and have left its ranks for a variety of reasons.
Because of the country’s economic conditions in the last three decades, budgets for higher
education have been meager causing shortage of funds to sustain the university’s principal
missions, maintain and upgrade its physical plant and modernize its instructional and research
equipment. The number of universities has also risen to over 20 from only a handful a decade
ago. Second, traditional foreign sources of funds from overseas for training, technical support
and research funds, which have in the past made significant contributions to build higher
education in Ethiopia, had dwindled and are not commensurate with Ethiopia’s growing needs
especially in these times of fiscal constraints in donor countries. Third, numerous educated
Ethiopians who have left their county in large numbers are established in their chosen domiciles
abroad and most are capable and desirous to collaborate with and or assist their colleagues in
Ethiopia to meet the challenges of higher education.
The role of EAF would include granting faculty and student fellowships and financing a variety
of academic programs for faculty such as sabbaticals, study leaves and short-term retooling and
training programs in Ethiopia or abroad. EAF will also make it possible for closer collaboration
between Ethiopian and US academics in research, teaching, graduate student training, sabbatical
swaps, conferences, seminars, roundtables, publication projects, summer workshops, study
abroad projects, student fieldwork and a variety of similar undertakings. Another area of
cooperation is in the supply of instructional and research materials such as text books,
periodicals, computers, laboratory supplies and field research equipment. Because of budgetary
problems and foreign exchange constraints, such supplies have become very difficult to secure
not only in Ethiopia but also all over Africa. There have been attempts by US institutions to
assist in this area, but this, as important as it is, cannot be expected to solve the fundamental
constraint. EAF’s activity in this area may include the support of libraries to restore, initiate
and/or maintain subscriptions to essential periodicals of creative scholarship and purchase of new
texts, reference materials, manuals, software and similar reading materials for immediate access
by scholars and students. EAF may also extend equipment grants for departments to modernize
and/or upgrade their teaching and research work. This may focus on critical need areas for
computers and laboratory equipment.
EAF is a Section 501(a) membership-based non-profit and tax exempt organization devoted to
supporting higher education in Ethiopia. The organization is free of any religious, ethnic or
political affiliation. It is an open organization which would welcome the membership of and/or
contribution from any one individual who supports the aims and objectives of the organization.
The organization is governed by its statutes. Membership in EAF would hopefully include the
widest possible representation of persons of Ethiopian origin, Americans, and friends of Ethiopia
from anywhere who support the objectives of EAF. The EAF statutes contain the objectives of
the Foundation, membership responsibilities, and administrative organization. The EAF statutes
allow a variety of affiliations and financial commitments to the organization. The administrative
structure includes a policy-making Board of Trustees elected by EAF members, an Executive
Committee derived from and appointed by the Board of Trustees, and a secretariat headed by an
Executive Director appointed by the Board of Trustees. The secretariat is located in the United
States of America in the city where the Executive Director resides. Chapters of EAF may be
formed in various locations in the United States, Ethiopia and elsewhere. The general
membership would be informed and networked on a regular basis by a newsletter whose
frequency would be determined by the EAF board of trustees.
The Ethiopian American Educational Foundation (EAF) is a membership-fee-based organization
in which dues collected from members are used to build a capital fund whose investment yields
are used to advance the objectives of EAF. Initially, EAF has devoted its financial support for
faculty and graduate student research projects in Ethiopian universities. However, EAF also has
plans to diversify its support of Ethiopian higher education in other areas such as undergraduate
scholarships in Ethiopian colleges and universities, faculty sabbaticals and study leaves for
teaching and research, targeted conferences and workshops in higher education in Ethiopia,
support of library collections, computing technology, laboratory equipment, and publication
projects in Ethiopia, and enable summer workshops, study abroad programs and a variety of
similar undertakings inside and outside Ethiopia. EAF funds are collected from the following
sources:
1. Pledges from founding members and lifetime members of EAF
2. Regular EAF membership dues
3. Gifts, memorials and endowments
4. Matching grants
5. Fund raisers (e.g. national, regional and local cultural functions)
6. In-kind (material) contributions
7. Reinvested proceeds from assets already held by EAF.
EAF is a Section 501(c) tax exempt organization. The EAF Treasurer will issue receipts
annually for tax reporting purposes with the IRS.
The founders hope that that EAF will become a reputable and credible organization with clearly
stated objectives and institutional means to achieve them, making it worthy of the support of
many Ethiopians, Ethiopian Americans, Americans, and friends of Ethiopia from elsewhere. On
their part, the founders and the leadership of EAF pledge to live us to the principles of EAF and
run the organization in accordance with its statutes.
April 1993
Rev. January 2008
Okemos, MI