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Matheos Mesfin, Founder and Executive Director of the Institute for East African Councils, on IEA Councils’ mantra for their work~
“I always say that the mantra for our work is that there’s no growth in comfort, and so the more concentration you have with the same kind of people, the more your comfort zone will cement. So we interject and we take them out of that comfort zone and say, “Go to school in rural Massachusetts.”
Andy Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen, and this is Our Town with a very special conversation with a young man that I happened to… I mean literally this was an accident. I was at an affair in the city and Our Town about Washingtonian of the Year and Donald Graham, who has been a friend for 50 years, says to me, “There’s a young man here that’s being recognized today I want you to meet. He is going to make a huge impact on parts of Our Town.” When Donald asks, we all react. I don’t care what we do because he’s such a big part of Our Town and a great guy and a wonderful man.
I said, Donald, okay, what do you got?” He said, “This young man is from East Africa. He’s a resident of the United States now, and he’s got a program that we’re rewarding here today at the Washingtonian.” Matheos Mesfin is a young man who’s well dressed. He looks like a million dollars. He’s getting an award that day. I said, “Donald, when you ask, I can’t refuse,” and he introduced us. I was so overwhelmed by your presence because you make a great impact, a great presentation as a wonderful guy. Without even knowing you, I thought we had some good vibes, and with Donald involved I couldn’t avoid it. So Matheos, welcome to Our Town. You’re making an impact, and we love it.
Matheos Mesfin: It’s such a pleasure to be here. Thank you for taking your time inviting me, and I hope that we’ll make this presentation worth it. Thank you so much.
From Ethiopia to Our Town to Grinnell College in Iowa and back to Our Town
Andy Ockershausen: You’re from Ethiopia.
Matheos Mesfin: Yes.
Andy Ockershausen: You were born in Ethiopia. How long have you been in Our Town?
Matheos Mesfin: I immigrated here in 2007, end of 2007.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s no time at all. It’s 12 years.
Matheos Mesfin: That’s no time at all, absolutely, and so 12 years. Spent three years at a DC public school before I settled in Iowa for undergrad.
Andy Ockershausen: The Grinnell College.
Matheos Mesfin: The Grinnell College.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s a very famous school.
Matheos Mesfin: Famous for its hipsters and its very liberal views. I settled there four years, came back, and I got my first job in DC in higher ed, and the rest is history. So I’ve been here ever since.
Andy Ockershausen: You’re the director at IEA Councils.
Matheos Mesfin: Yes, yes. I-
Andy Ockershausen: Did you create the position?
On Founding the Institute for East African Councils on Higher Education
Matheos Mesfin: I did. I did. I established the Institute for East African Councils on Higher Education. It is a mouthful, so the abbreviation’s what we commonly refer to as IEA Councils. It really stemmed from the idea that this area as hub for a lot of East Africans. It has hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians, a very robust Eritrean, Somali, Sudanese students and just diaspora all together. So we have seen that these students have created these cultural enclaves and they’re not really reaching their full potential because they’re limited to what their communities say or how their communities define college and school all together. With that in mind, I saw my transition to Grinnell as a very unique opportunity, and with that came the obligation to make sure that these wonderful students also reach their potentials by matriculating to top notch schools.
Andy Ockershausen: That is a wonderful, wonderful… I hope it’s going to work through fairly well, and that means very fast. Because young people coming here, if they congregate together, they’re not really becoming a part of Our Town. They’re becoming part of their own group.
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: What you’re trying to urge people to do become bigger than just your group, be part of Our Town.
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: It’s such a great place to be a part of.
There’s No Growth in Comfort
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely. I always say that the mantra for our work is that there’s no growth in comfort, and so the more concentration you have with the same kind of people, the more your comfort zone will cement. So we interject and we take them out of that comfort zone and say, “Go to school in rural Massachusetts.”
Andy Ockershausen: Wow.
Matheos Mesfin: “Go to school in California.” Two of our interns are here with us right now, and one of them is a student at Williams College, a top notch liberal arts school. The other one-
Andy Ockershausen: In New England. As long as you can handle winter, you can handle Williams.
Matheos Mesfin: Yes, yes, yes. Then we have another one from the University of Richmond as well. We deliberately push them out so they can acclimate and become more proactive-
Andy Ockershausen: More involved with the town, whatever the town is, correct?
On IEA Councils’ Students Coming Back to Our Town After College to Make an Impact
Matheos Mesfin: Yes, absolutely. Primarily here. They always come back here and make an impact. That’s what we want.
Andy Ockershausen: Well, your ability to communicate in seven languages is God given. That is wonderful because you need that to mesh with this groups, correct?
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely. I speak some better than others, but I’ve always been a strong proponent of languages. Actually as part of-
Andy Ockershausen: You can communicate.
Speaking Their Language Can Make All the Difference in a Young Person’s Life
Matheos Mesfin: I can communicate more or less. I spend the majority of my life in a French school when I was in Ethiopia. Then I took some time to study Italian as well just because it’s very similar, and I took some Arabic courses as well. Again, some more or less than others but I’ve seen that languages all together are a gateway to really communicate with people and open them up. In the case of our students, we do have a student community who’s Arabic speaking or we do have a student community who speaks Amharic. So the ability to speak languages really extends the level of comfort where these kids feel confident-
Andy Ockershausen: Absolutely.
Matheos Mesfin: … relying on us and doing the work that we want to do.
Andy Ockershausen: You’re a great role model.
Matheos Mesfin: Well, thank you, my friend. I appreciate it.
Andy Ockershausen: It’s true. This is Andy Ockershausen. This is Our Town. We’re having a wonderful conversation with Matheos about his role here in Our Town. We’ll be right back. Thank you Matheos.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town with Andy Ockershausen. Brought to you by Best Bark Communications.
Andy Ockershausen: This is Our Town. This is Andy Ockershausen in a wonderful conversation with a young man that I’ve had the pleasure to know for five months, Matheos. It seems like a lifetime, but-
Matheos Mesfin: It does.
Andy Ockershausen: … meeting you is great for me and great for Our Town to find out you’re a part of us and you’re here, and what you’re doing is unbelievable. Tom Sherwood, who was just here as a reporter, said that he covered so many naturalization ceremonies. He was so surprised that most of the people were Ethiopian who are going for citizenship.
Our Town has the Largest Ethiopian Population Outside Ethiopia
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely, absolutely. This area has the largest Ethiopian population outside Ethiopia.
Andy Ockershausen: Is that right?
Matheos Mesfin: It’s surprising but it is. The figures are some people say 300,000. Some people say over 400,000 both in DC and Virginia and Maryland. So it is a huge population. It’s a thriving population and its capital worth investing in and cultivating.
Andy Ockershausen: Well, you mentioned it, the jurisdiction, one of the things we believe in Our Town is that Montgomery County, Fairfax, Loudoun County, Prince George, that’s all part of Our Town.
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: They’re not in the city, but it’s Our Town, and this population from your countries that are coming from Africa I hope are being spread out through Our Town-
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: … not just a downtown group.
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely. A lot of them live in Maryland yet work in DC, and so they’re definitely contributors to the city itself, yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: One of my very, very dear friends that owns a parking company here, Colonial Parking, that they set out 20 years ago they were hiring particularly from Ethiopian kids.
Matheos Mesfin: It’s a community-
Andy Ockershausen: Training them in the business.
Collective Effort to Make Sure Your Neighbor is as Accomplished As You Are
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely. It’s a community that really is setting an exemplar for other minority groups as well. It’s a community that tends to help each other. It’s not anything worth envying, but it’s really an exemplar worth mimicking because we have so many different minority groups that are all going in their own separate ways. But again, this collective effort to make sure that your neighbor is as accomplished as you are as I think something that is positively reflected in the communities that we serve.
Andy Ockershausen: When you get immigrants or people coming from out of the country to come in to the United States, well, I’m delighted because it’s easier for you to understand us if we have a language that we can communicate in.
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: For Ethiopian kids, that’s really works, doesn’t it?
Matheos Mesfin: It does work.
Andy Ockershausen: You can see it.
IEA Councils’ Students at Ivy League Schools
Matheos Mesfin: It does work. I can tell you this. I’ve established this organization in 2016. In three years we’ve had students in almost every Ivy League school in the country. We have a student at Harvard, at MIT. We have two students at Stanford. We have a student at Dartmouth. We have a student at Duke, University of Pennsylvania. I mean you name it. So it really shows that if given the proper time, the proper attention that these kids could also be of service and of use to the city and to the country all together.
Andy Ockershausen: And they work very hard, too.
Matheos Mesfin: Oh, they work-
Andy Ockershausen: The things at Colonial, their employees, they don’t have a discipline problem.
Matheos Mesfin: They work-
Andy Ockershausen: These kids are really happy to be here.
Appreciating the Basic Necessities of Life
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely. They’ve seen worse. Let me just put it that way. Where they come from eating three times a day for some of them is a privilege. We take it for granted here, but for them having just the basic necessities of life-
Andy Ockershausen: It’s amazing.
Matheos Mesfin: … and on top of that extending a college education is really heaven on Earth. They are very driven, and they really gravitate towards everything positive.
Andy Ockershausen: Well, the people have now learned a lot of things. How about in medicine? Aren’t there a lot of Ethiopian kids that I see working in a hospital maybe as a attendant? But that’s changing now.
Matheos Mesfin: Oh, absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: They’re becoming doctors and nurses, correct?
On IEA Councils’ Students Becoming Doctors and Nurses – They Can Change Their Minds
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely. You have a lot of parents that are nurses or that maybe nursing assistants, they play a key role in really conditioning their child to pursue medicine as a tentative field, as a tentative profession. That has been a huge factor, and many of our students, a lot of them are going on a premed track. As you know, college students tend to also switch, and so we’re open for that as well. We-
Andy Ockershausen: They can change their mind.
Matheos Mesfin: They can change their mind, and we reassure the parents that it’s actually okay for them to be an engineer and not a doctor or a journalist and not a doctor as well. But a lot of them do gravitate towards the medical field, and it’s a good thing. It’s an-
Andy Ockershausen: I think it’s wonderful, wonderful.
Matheos Mesfin: It’s a demanded field, yeah.
Andy Ockershausen: How about the relationships back in Africa? Do most of these families have still a dual relationship with their families if they all didn’t get here back in Ethiopia?
On IEA Councils’ Students and Their Families
Matheos Mesfin: I mean you really can’t help choosing your parents. A lot of them may have a grandfather or an uncle or an aunt who still lives in Ethiopia and Eritrea. I think for so many students I have seen that that has provided them with really a practical source of reminder that whatever they have now comes with a responsible. Because when they call their uncle, they hear maybe grim stories about how they’re living and so forth. So it drives them to be even more successful. In some cases they do travel back. They volunteer and so forth. But for a lot of them, it’s a great source of inspiration to-
Andy Ockershausen: It’s truly the American experience because-
Matheos Mesfin: It is.
Andy Ockershausen: … that was prevalent with every ethnic group that came to America whether Irish, English, German. The families all had to work hard-
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: … and this is all happening again. It’s so great. This is Matheos Mesfin. We’re talking about America and Ethiopia and how great we are.
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: So happy to have you on Our Town.
Matheos Mesfin: It’s very humbling, and it’s such a pleasure to meet you as well, Andy, yet again.
Andy Ockershausen: This is Andy Ockershausen. We’ll be right back.
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Announcer: You’re listening to Our Town with Andy Ockershausen. Brought to you by Best Bark Communications.
Andy Ockershausen: This Our Town, Andy Ockershausen in a conversation with Matheos Mesfin about his role of helping these young immigrants who come to our country and how do they get involved in the system. This is what you see too.
The Institute of East African Councils Higher Education Program | How to Navigate the College Admissions Process
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely. The program that we offer is very phase specific. We have three different phases. I’ll use one of our interns as an example. A lot of our students are already enrolled in high schools. They apply to become part of our organization as rising seniors. So we review their application. There’s actually a fairly rigorous assessment process to really see the eligibility of the student. They go through an in-person interview before they’re officially inducted to be part of the organization. But once they do, we really try and personalize our services because we want to understand what the context at home is. We want to see what their different barriers may be whether it’s a language barrier, it’s a cultural barrier. We try and see where the student is in order to help them out in the best way possible.
But beyond, we don’t put them in colleges. These students have worked tirelessly throughout the entirety of their high school years, and so the spots that these colleges give them is deserved. I mean the students deserve these spots. It’s not like they find a side door. It’s none of that. These kids put in… We have students that have 800 hours of community service, that have 1550 on their SATs and so forth. So they do have the hard skills and the prerequisites, as most colleges traditionally refer to, to get into these institutions. What they don’t have is really the navigational skills and the application itself.
Andy Ockershausen: How to do it.
Blain – One Intern’s Experience
Matheos Mesfin: How to do it because some of them work two or three jobs, and they don’t know that telling the admission officers that they have two or three jobs in addition to going to school is worth noting on the application. We tell them, “Yes, they need to know that you work two or three jobs and that you speak four languages. It’s worth putting on the application.” In the case of one of our interns, Blain here, I can specifically tell you when we had identified lists of schools that she should consider, she went with that list to her high school counselor, and her high school counselor said, “Ah, I don’t think you’re worth these schools.” From her mouth to your ears, she got into every single school that we recommended including Williams, which is the highest ranked liberal arts school-
Andy Ockershausen: Oh my.
Matheos Mesfin: … Grinnell. I mean she got into Georgetown. I mean Georgetown University wanted her so much they offered her an indefinite access to their bookstore, if I’m not mistaken, for emergency purposes to get jackets and so forth. So these are incredibly talented students. We’re there to make sure that their talent is crystallized and known amongst the higher ed community.
Andy Ockershausen: But how do you get them to the list of schools? Did the schools come to you? Do you have a pool of people?
On Objectively Assessing a College or University and Acclimating to a New Environment (Potential for Culture Shock)
Matheos Mesfin: Yeah, absolutely. Because there is such a huge community, higher ed is oftentimes defined by their community members, and so we tell them, “This is how you objectively assess a school. Access to community center should not be the ultimate determinator as to what school you should consider.” You have factors like study abroad opportunities, research opportunities, internship opportunities, and how rigorous the courses and just the teaching style of the college is as more important factors as students say this college over that one. Once they get in and there’s another hard part which is making sure that they persist.
Andy Ockershausen: Stay in.
Matheos Mesfin: They stay in. It’s a culture shock for a lot of them.
Andy Ockershausen: Oh, sure it is.
Matheos Mesfin: I mean Blain, it’s her first time in Massachusetts, and she’s still acclimating. She just finished her first year.
Andy Ockershausen: College is a cultural shock for most young people.
Matheos Mesfin: It was for me too.
Andy Ockershausen: Sure it is.
Matheos Mesfin: It was for me too.
Andy Ockershausen: It’s in another world.
Matheos Mesfin: Yes, we make ourselves available for them as much as possible.
Andy Ockershausen: Matheos, you got an incredible story. I heard a lot of it at the Washingtonian, but listening to you, you’re such an inspiration.
Matheos Mesfin: Ah, thank you.
Andy Ockershausen: I would hope that the people when they arrive here, they know who you are and how important your group is.
Matheos Mesfin: God willing. I appreciate it.
Andy Ockershausen: To be a member of your group is an entrée to a better life.
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: That’s what it’s all about.
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: Do you have any questions, boss?
Janice Iacona Ockershausen: No, it’s an intriguing story.
Andy Ockershausen: We’re so glad. That’s why Donald wanted us to talk about it. We don’t have a huge audience, but we have a very important audience, people that care. They wouldn’t listen to any podcast.
Matheos Mesfin: Fantastic.
Andy Ockershausen: Having you has made it so important for us. We’ll stay with you and keep up to date with you to see how you’re doing with your program.
How to Support IEA Councils and its Students
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely. I invite anyone who wants to be involved, support us in any way possible whether it’s through prayers or financially. We welcome all of it.
Janice Iacona Ockershausen: Do you have a website you could give?
Matheos Mesfin: We do, yeah, yeah, yeah. The website is ieacouncils, so that’s I-E-A-C-O-U-N-C-I-L-S.org. Everything they need to know about our work is there including the accomplishments of our students and the ways to support us as well.
Andy Ockershausen: Well, you’re a wonderful example of… the system must work. To get you to Grinnell and back was a great thing.
Matheos Mesfin: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I thank God more than anything else but absolutely, it was an experience.
Andy Ockershausen: God is very important.
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: You bring so much to our country. That’s what’s so important, and it’s great. It’s growing. Thank God for you and for what you’ve done.
Matheos Mesfin: Thank you, Andy.
Andy Ockershausen: We will stay with your career and stay with you to make sure you’re doing it. I’ll make sure that Donald Graham knows that we honor you-
Matheos Mesfin: Absolutely.
Andy Ockershausen: … and we honor him too.
Matheos Mesfin: Thank you so much.
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