• Both ADMA and ASAA representatives to brief the house on the objectives and the progress of the organizations, especially to those who are not familiar with these organizations - about how these organizations started and what have been accomplished so far.
• To discuss the issues the new committee members faced – the committee under ADMA that was formed in November 2003.

Dawit Mulugeta – Chairperson

Dejene Ahmed – Scribe

Muluken Abraha

Andom Gebru

Nigist Sendekie

Shibabaw Wayu

Yeshaw Mensur

Shimelis Tadesse

Zenebe Belay

Akalnesh Mamo

Teka Girma

Tesfaye Tadesse

Shewarega Assefa

Abraham Azene

Senait Tefera

Temesgen Meless

Dannie Tefera

Tarekegn SendekieSummary:

At 7:00 PM people started calling the conference numbers. The first few minutes were used for greeting and choosing chairperson and scribe.

There were two suggestions prior to the briefings and the discussion: Andom Gebru suggested to the chairman to take few minutes in memory of our deceased brothers and sisters and remember them in silent prayer. Chairman Dawit agreed on that point and promised to do that beginning our next meeting. Tesfeye Tadesse suggested to all participants of the conference to think positively about both organizations and allow speakers to finish their thoughts before commenting or asking questions. Tesfaye also stated that "both groups are working for the good of the Azezo community and the issues between the two is not a major one." His advice to the group was to "listen to each other patiently and find a way to serve our community together."

Then Akalnesh and Dawit took turns to brief us on what was discussed on the first teleconference and why we are having the second conference. (The summary of the first conference is attached here at the end of this document and you can read about it)

According to Akalnesh and Dawit, the second teleconference was planned in order to invite members of

ADMA and have them explain to the people that requested to know more about the organization at the first teleconference – about who they are, what the objective of the organization is, and what kind of issues they have with ASAA. At the same time, members of ASAA were requested to give explanation for establishing another organization under the name of ASAA. Akalnesh was given the mandate to invite members of ADMA to the second conference.ADMA:

Muluken Abraha, from ADMA, thanked all that were attending the meeting for giving him the opportunity to speak about ADMA. Main points of Muluken’s speech:Organization name: Azezo Dimaza Mahaber (ADMA)Established: June 2002 Membership: 40, 25 active. In addition the branch in Ethiopia has 50 members.Committee members: 3 – Malede Zewdu (chairman), Abebe Zewdu (secretary) and Muluken Abraha

How it started: prior to June 2002, when Malede Zewdu was in Azezo for visit, the Azezo soccer club which won a championship contacted him to request help from people in the US. Malede came back to US touched by the talent and the great need the soccer team had. After sharing the news with family and friends, the Azezo Dimaza Mahaber was established in DC area including people from Virginia, Maryland and New Jersey.Objective: to help the soccer team with its financial need and build a recreation center for the youth. Major activities: ADMA had a fundraising event in November 2003 and got cash and pledge for 18,500. In addition the organization is raising fund from its members to help buy chairs and meet other needs of Azezo Atse Fasil Elementary School.Difficult issues the new eight-committee members wrestled with are: not being given enough time to review the bylaw, priority of projects, and misunderstanding of what the organization goal. ASAA:

Senait Tefera and Dejene Ahmed, From ASAA, took turns to brief the house on how the organization was started, how they got involved, what the organizations accomplished so far and the challenges they encountered in the process. Organization name: Azezo Schools Alumni Association (ASAA)Established: April 2004 and it is registered in the state of Florida.Membership: There is no official list of members yet. But there are about 15 people who are involved to establish the association and reach out more people who have no access to e-mail service.Committee members: There are six temporary committee members. The organization held election in June 2004 to elect permanent committee members, but the results were not announced because of lack of participants. This became the very reason for the organization to discus the issue on teleconference the first time.How it started:

Senait Tefera, Dejene Ahmed, Zufan and Eleni Alebachew were visiting Azezo in July and August of 2003. During their visit, the Azezo Atse Fasil School invited them at different times to the school to show the deteriorated condition of the school. Senait with pictures, Dejene with video and the Alebachew sisters with phone calls tried to reach all their friends after returning to the US. Most of the people Senait and Dejene reached suggested for an organization to be established to bring all people from Azezo under one umbrella in order to help the school and the community. In addition, most of them stressed the importance of an organization to eliminate sporadic efforts and increase our effectiveness in the long run.

November 30, 2003, the day after ADMA’s fundraising night, about ten people met at Abebe Zewdu house in Maryland to discuss the school issue. At that meeting, it was agreed to keep the name ADMA and increase its committee members from 3 to 8 and reach out all native Azezo children. Many details were not worked out at the meeting, instead the eight-committee members were given the responsibility to come up with ways on how to increase the membership and find ways to raise fund for our community. The committee members met three times between December of 2003 and February of 2004. Clearly there were differences of vision, misunderstandings of detail matters and difficulty on approving the bylaw among committee members. After the February 22, 2003 meeting, the committee did not plan to meet again. Since the idea of Alumni Association was discussed prior to the November 10, 2003 meeting, we began to discuss it more beginning in March 2004 as the only alternative to organize all former students of Azezo Schools. In April 2004, Azezo Schools Alumni Association (ASAA) was registered in Florida.Objective: to help the Azezo Schools and the Azezo community by organizing all former students of Azezo schools. Major Activities: approved a bylaw and it is officially registered in the state of Florida.The Findings of the second conference:

Although there was great interest to know more about the two organizations and the issues that divided them, the second teleconference participants stopped short of blaming either organization. Rather most of them spoke about working together and becoming one group again. Yeshaw Mensur, Temesgen Meless, Tesfaye Tadesse, Shibabaw Wayu and Dawit Mulugeta praised the work ADMA is doing, and also stressed the importance of working together and merging the two organizations again. Abraham Azene suggested that "the meeting should only focus on finding ways that will strengthen our unity and not going back to past issues".

During the question and comment time, both parties were asked if they were still willing to work together under one umbrella to serve the Azezo community; both groups answered "yes". But later Muluken was asked if ADMA can operate under the umbrella of ASAA. And his answer was "I can not decide that by myself here".

One apparent thing during the discussion was that all parties involved in both organizations are highly devoted people who work tirelessly sacrificing their time to serve their community. Participants have appreciated the work that have been done by ADMA to support the Azezo sport club and the efforts made by ASAA in order to bring all former students of Azezo schools in Alumni Association.

Majority of the participants suggested the need and their willingness to work together under one organization that can effectively bring all children of Azezo under one umbrella. Past mistakes that caused the newly formed ADMA committee members to split, such as lack of effective communication and misunderstanding of the motives of individuals are not to be repeated from here on. Akalnesh Mamo also raised the importance effective communication and that people should not take issues personal. "When working together as a group people’s idea can be accepted or rejected; we do not take it personal", she added.

Up until few minutes past 9: PM we were discussing the first agenda: how can we serve our community better? By then it was clear to all that there was a need and willingness to serve our community in unity. But the nuts-and-bolts were not worked out due to time constrain. Thus the second agenda which focuses more on the technicality of our unity was postponed for Sunday July 25, 7:00 PM.

Shibabaw Wayu assigned to reserve our next teleconference.

Tesfaye Tadesse willingly took homework to find out how our organization can apply for Federal Tax ID.

The number of participants on the second conference was almost double the first one; it was very encouraging to see that. Thank you all who made the extra effort to inform others who do not have access to e-mail service. We also thank Akalnesh Mamo for contacting ADMA. I am quite sure many were happy to hear for the first time what have been accomplished so far from all sides.

Five out of the eight committee members that were elected at the November 30^th meeting in Maryland attended the meeting: Abraham Azene, Dannie Tefera, Shimelis Tadesse, Senait Tefera and Muluken Abraha. Their presence at the conference meant a lot – that we have not lost the very thing that pulled us together when we began this journey. All have sacrificed time and money to get us where we are today. Most of them sat quietly allowing the questions and comments to come from people who were not familiar with both organizations. And that was commendable! We hope to hear from Malede, Abebe and Yousif on our next conference.

Please call the following number to join our next teleconference 1- 319-279-1015 - access code 483755#

All who receive this e-mail are invited. Please plan to attend and pass the message to others.

Thank you,

Dejene Ahmed

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Date: July 25, 2004 at 7:00P.M. EDT

Muluken Abraha

Dejene Ahmed (chairperson)

Eleni Alebachew

Zufan Alebachew

Shewarega Assefa (scribe)

Abreham Azene

Tekleberhan Gebru

Teka Girmay

Chuni Kassahun

Akalnesh Mammo

Temesgen Meles

Tesfaye Mengistie

Dawit Mulugeta

Nigist Sendeke

Tarekegn Sendeke

Tesfaye Tadesse

Shimelis Tadesse

Daniel Teferra

Senait Teferra

Mesfin Tsige

Shibabaw Wayu

Right after electing the chairperson and scribe of the meeting, Dejene gave us a brief summery of our last teleconference meeting. He noted that in the last meeting it was reflected that all the participants agreed on the importance of working together under one umbrella organization.

The agendas were not actually discussed in the order they were written. The ADMA issue was the first to be mentioned. Muluken was the only elected member of the association but he attended the meeting not in his capacity as an elected official of ADMA but on his own like each of the attendees. Therefore, in the absence of a representative, it was agreed to proceed with discussing other issues at hand, save the ADMA issue.

It was agreed that the association we envision to create has to be broader and all inclusive that will work with transparency. It was urged to do it now, with the details of the association, projects and other technicalities left to be worked out later.

The first argument was that since we have ASAA with the by-laws written and registered in the state of Florida, we could easily adapt it, thereby saving time and avoiding double payment for registration fee.

The counter argument was that due to the difference exhibited between ASAA and ADMA, keeping the name would be divisive. In stead, it was suggested, for all intents and purposes, it would be best if we formed an association on broader basis, afresh.

The third argument gave less weight to the name and persuasively argued to place priority to the over all objective of the association to be formed and on how we increase the level of participation. It was suggested that we have to see the bigger picture and not entangle ourselves with technical difficulties which could possibly be resolved as we go along. It was further suggested that keeping the whole process simple and avoiding complications, would immensely help us achieve our objectives.

Some concerns were also voiced regarding having a clear picture of the relationship with ADMA before we rush in to naming the new association. It was argued that our priority has to be creating a committee to solve this problem.

However, many of the participants suggested that naming the association was part of the agenda, to start with, and believed it to be a fundamental question to be dealt with right away! It was argued that ‘name always sells’ and it is important to have an all inclusive name before we do any thing else.

After exhaustively listening to arguments and counter arguments on the issue it was finally agreed to hold a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ vote on having a new name. And, the ‘Yes’ side won with a 10 vote as opposed to 7 ‘No’ votes and 1 neutral vote . Three of the participants were absent during the vote.

Once we agreed on having a new name, we carried on holding a vote on the two suggested names. The first one was the old name- ASAA and the other one suggested by Temesgen was Azezo Dimaza Schools Alumni Association. He convincingly argued that the name is all- inclusive and it embraces both parties which were thus far divided based on the projects they intended to carry out. He further suggested the technicalities and the details could be worked out later but our focus for now should be on giving a name for the association we all seem to have agreed on creating today. And, the majority agreed with him.

We took a vote on the two names- ASAA versus ADSAA. The later won with a majority vote of 9 against 3 for ASAA with 6 neutral votes. Two participants fail to vote, apparently for technical reasons.

The child was hence delivered and the name came to be known as Azezo Dimaza Schools Alumni Association (ADSAA). Needless to say all of us who have witnessed the birth of our new association have the responsibility to spread out the news by any means possible to the rest of our brothers and sisters. I strongly believe that this would be one way of increasing the level of participation for the next meeting.

The final part of our agenda was electing the new committee members and deciding the task and the mandate of this committee. As opposed to the previous agendas it went almost seamlessly as we all came to agree on creating a task force whose purpose it would be to amend and change, as needed, the by-law written for ASAA. The by-law, so amended and adapted, will be presented for a final approval to a general meeting of members. Once we have the by-law finalized it would be ‘our guiding torch’ and will take care of such issues as how we create BODs and executives.

Noticing lack of participation as a major impediment that we have encountered so far, we seized the opportunity to create the task force with what we have, momentarily, in order to speed up the process. So, it was done by adding as many people as possible to the previous list of names assigned for the purpose of registering ASAA in Florida, in lieu of going through the normal procedure of an election process. This was decided on ‘a last minute play’ as we were running short of time set for the teleconference.

The original six names were:

Tekleberhan Gebru

Shibabaw Wayu

Zenebe Belay

Dawit Mulugeta

Dejene Ahmed

Mesfin Tsige

And the other names thrown as we were exiting were:

Tesfaye Tadesse

Akalnesh Mammo

Shewarega Assefa

Daniel Teferra

Senait Teferra

Muluken Abraha (politely declined)

Zufan Alebachew

Abreham Azene

Tarekegn Sendekie

It was decided that the task force, thus loosely formed, will come up with a finalized version of the by-law in two weeks time.

Thank You,

Shewarega Assefa