Ethiopian Commodities Exchange

Dr. Eleni Gabre-Madhin, a native of Ethiopia, is an awesome, inspiring woman. After spending much of her life in exile in the United States, Eleni decided to return to her home country of Ethiopia in order to fulfill her dream of revolutionizing Ethiopian trading systems through the Ethiopian Commodities Exchange (ECX). The following is a link to an extremely sophisticated video documenting who Eleni is, how she first came up with the idea, the challenges she encountered in trying to implement it and the ultimate successes of the program:

http://video.pbs.org/video/1197888947/

I am so intrigued by this video and Eleni's story for a number of reasons, but first and foremost I am inspired by this awesome woman's innovation, courage, and commitment to what she believed in. Despite having a privileged, comfortable life in the U.S., Eleni was drawn to do something more, and so she left all she knew, everything she was comfortable. On a basic human level this sort of courage baffles me. Perhaps it is because I feel most alive when enjoying the comfort of richly developed relationships and the prospect of making such drastic changes to one's life situation necessitates drastic changes in one's social situation. However, more than simply leave the U.S. Eleni returned to a society dominated by men. Nearly all the people Eleni works with on a regular basis, from buyers and sellers to her ECX administration to the government officials, almost all are men. When video viewers do see women active in Ethiopian trade, it is usually on the most rudimentary levels such as basic commodity production or basic office paper shuffling. Over the course of the 53 minute video, there were approximately two short scenes with women other than Eleni in these sorts of roles. More over, Eleni was not only a woman venturing to work in a man's business but a woman venturing to revolutionize a way of business, a way of life from how a people have done it "forever," as her business operations director, Ben, put it. In the face of these challenges and more, Eleni worked tirelessly to realize her dream of creating a commodities exchange system with a commitment that was awesome in the truest sense of the word.

Eleni's success, however, seemed to be more than just relentless commitment. As the Ethiopian Prime Minister put it, she seemed to have "commitment, vision, and skills." This statement led me to ask what is the nature of social progress? Or even more generally, what is the nature of implementing a new ideological system? It seems that inherent in the concept of commitment is focus. While my initial thought was that this focus would likely lend itself to problem definition and the identification of where one is going to focus one's efforts, after chewing on the idea a bit more it seems that focus or clarity embodied in commitment could also be aptly applied to the vision or goals being worked towards, as well as the skills facilitating the accomplishment of that vision. This investigation of the nature of social action at a community level continued on to stretch me a bit more than I anticipated, seeming to next beg the question of what I am being called to focus on, what/where/who I could be committed to. Eleni seemed to embrace an interest that was natural for her, her home country, what are my natural interests? For some reason I have always been interested in culture, global issues, and now potentially, at some point, international social work, but what is the best approach to social change? I've heard the phrase, 'Think globally, act locally,' which is what Eleni seems to be doing with her ECX, but are people really most invested and therefore most affecting in communities that are their own? I am eager to make a change, am deeply touched by the injustices around the world, particularly those affecting women and children, but where is the best place to start? Perhaps it is different for everyone and in such diversity of response that we collectively address needs?

One of the issues that often seems to come up in my work as a social worker in responding to the needs of individuals and then society is the issue of access. My conceptualization of 'access' was challenged by this video as Eleni worked to discover the underlying causes of famine in Ethiopia. The gist of her work was learning that famine is not necessarily about lack of food production but lack of entitlement, lack of access. Having always resided in the U.S. I never really thought of access to food as an issue to do with much more finances, having money to pay for food. Furthermore, I have never really had the immediate need to question how I am going to get my food for the day or how I am going to find a buyer for the single product I have produced, a product upon which my entire livelihood depends. Because of this, watching Eleni renegotiate such a basic piece of infrastructure was mindboggling; I had no concept of what it is like to not have a framework through which to access goods. Although I am still far from understanding the intricacies associated with the development of modern exchange systems and economies, I can at least now conceive of a country's infrastructure as including more than just roads, housing, schools, and infrastructure. More than challenge my understanding of access and infrastructure, this concept led me to wonder how else my life as an American skews my view of the world around me. What else am I missing? What am I assuming? What am I misinterpreting?