Born in the countryside of Ethiopia to a single mother as the eighth born of nine siblings, Habteselassie Birhanu Tilahun treasures his childhood dearly. He invests his time and resources into working with children.
Birhanu confesses he experienced a poor foundation in his lower education. His former primary school had insurmountable challenges such as over population leading to at least 60 children being assigned to one teacher who in turn had to grapple over five subjects never mind they had inadequate knowledge.
At 15 years, Birhanu moved up to grade nine and began to take his studies seriously. He had no other option because the school structure was designed in a way that did not allow for anyone to repeat classes upon poor performance. His mother also passed away when he was sixteen.
He got admitted to Adama University and pursued a degree in education- business management. Upon graduation, he got jobs as a lecturer at both Adama University and Infornet college in Addis Ababa. He taught management and marketing courses for five years. He also lectured on part time basis at Unity University for two years.
Birhanu later joined the NGO world through Compassion International to pursue his passion of working with children under the Child Development Sponsorship Program as a social worker. He was assigned to East Gossam, his home town and later moved to Addis Ababa. The program reached 2,000 parents, 500 social workers and 1,000 children.
In 2016, he joined the Holistic Child Development program at Evangelical Theological College in Addis Ababa whose main three pillars are offering child development projects, nurturing of talents and gifts, and offering education.
After completing his Masters Degree, Birhanu joined the 50 courses for children and is currently involved in culture and child development for parents and guardians. This translates to child friendly teaching methodologies directed at trainers and the concept of holistic child development directly applied in teaching social workers.
I am greatly satisfied and fulfilled in having impacted hundreds of children. I love it when we offer social, emotional and life skills to these emerging crops of leaders.
This young leader was recently selected as a participant in the YALI Regional Center where we met. He admits that the young African leaders he met exceeded his expectations and he cannot imagine how Africa will pan out in the next 10-20 twenty years.
I have developed a program for children using the 7 habits of effective people, a course taught at YALI. We tested it immediately I got home after the program. It was a success with 90 children aged between 11-14 years being impacted through the program in three phases and in under three weeks.
The children responded very well. Most of them discovered their leadership skills. I am currently working on a consistent monthly program for these African children.
Birhanu encourages young African leaders not to forget children when they are pursuing their passions and transforming their communities.
If you know your vision, interests and gifts then you are already successful.
In the next 10 years, this fearless young African leader is looking to complete a work in progress, starting up an East African child development seminary. The program will include research and culture, life skills training programs, and child development courses aimed at thousands of African children.
Culture is the second creator of humanity. We must equip our children because think about it, these are our leaders in the next 10-30 years.
