Consolidating women’s courage for freedom via economic benefits

 In the 18th century, the Gurage ethnic had a biased culture that dominates women in their marital life. The culture obliged a woman to be unable to marry anyone after her husband passed away. Regardless of this fact, a woman named Kake Wurdwet had full freedom at home. However, she fought for the right of other women who faced such dominations came out of this culture.

Mengistu Abera is Cultural Heritage expert at Gurage Zone Culture, Tourism and Sport Bureau, said that Wurdwet was the first Gurage woman to ask for removal of Sike a curse on married women not to reject anything from their husbands. The culture also obliged women to stay widow once their life mates died.

Therefore, Wurdwet used to gather her mates and convinced them to stand against the norm to enjoy their freedom. Through time the culture that dominates women became thrown away. Thanks to Wrudwet and her partners, today the Gurage women marry the person they love and follow their own suit if their husbands die.

“Our foremothers had fought for freedom and sovereignty of the country. There were also local struggles for liberation. Dominations were inevitable as of any of the then countries. Therefore remembering Wurdwet is important to acknowledge girls about their capability to stand against dominations,” said Culture, Tourism and Sport Minister Dr. Hirut Kassaw.

This year, the world has celebrated Women’s Day for 44th time. Ethiopia has been also celebrating March 8 similar to the foreigners. “However, we have women like Wurdwet who stand against cultural domination in the 18thcentury that count over 150 years back from now. Therefore we should correct our perspectives of March 8 since we had started liberation movements in early days.”

As to her, Ethiopians have great nation and women have played significant role in making the nation’s glory days. Women are tranquil and wise and they played invaluable role in the country’s history and saved the nation from problems. Etege Tewabech, Taitu, Mintwab, Zewditu, Kake Wurdwet and others are best examples in this regard. And Wurdwet help the Gurage people to avid cultural domination that weren’t good features of the people.

Therefore, the people should lead the world in celebrating the day by acknowledging influential Ethiopian women. According to Dr. Hirut, the ministry is documenting the biography of influential Ethiopian women who made their level best for the hegemony of the country. As a result, the document will be published and disseminated to the public in a short period of time.

Accordingly, several artistic pieces including books, dramas and theatres were written and performed to remember Wurdwet and her mates to their struggle for freedom. A market center is also going to be constructed after the name of Wurdwet.

In the first of March 2020, the Ethiopian Women Entrepreneurs Association has laid a cornerstone to the construction of the center with the presence of Association president and Culture, Tourism and Sport Minister. The center is the remembrance of Kake Wurdwet, who fought cultural domination on women. She had freedom at home, but she fought for the rights of her peer mates who were under suppression at the time, Association President Engdaye Eshete stated.

The association will construct the center in order to facilitate women with the needed market opportunity to their products. The center will help the women to get the needed trainings on life skills and other business perspectives, she said.

“This will enable them to be economically beneficial and capable of supporting their family and the country too. Therefore, we spent about 32 million birr to the construction of the center.” The eight storey market center will contain bureaus, bank services, cafe and restaurants, training center, production rooms, and store among others, according to Engdaye.

The center will serve about 10,000 women in the area who made their livelihood in producing and selling products made up of enset like kocho and bula, she stated. They also produce and sell handicrafts from the byproducts of the aforementioned products. So, the plan is to bring their variety of products in a single center so as to interconnect the seller and buyer together, she noted.

“We want them to be organized under an enterprise to be more productive. We plan to connect entrepreneurs and unemployed ones.” As to her, the association has about 80 branches in SNNPs state out of its 245 branches across the country.

The association has been also providing the same service in Amhara and SNNPs. It will address the program in Oromia and other states. Currently, it is helping about 265,000 women across the country working in the business industry, she indicated.

As a country that has a long history that extended for thousands of years, Ethiopians should remember not only the role of forefathers but also foremothers who have played indispensable role for the establishment of the country both in good and bad times. “Understanding our history will help us to know ourselves and to be self-esteemed so that can do something to put our fingerprint or share and pave the way to the coming generation in addition to transferring what we know about the history made by forefathers. And of course, the construction of the market center by women’s association shows that women can do everything they insisted on as Wurdwet and her mates achieved it once in the fight against cultural domination, Dr. Hirut said.

The Ethiopian Herald April 14/2020

 BY YOHANES JEMANEH