By: Dr. Fasika Teferra
I am a person living with Crohn’s Disease. It has taken me a long time to accept and learn to live with the condition, and through that time, I realized that I had a passion to serve the community. I had always been told the only institution that does good is a nonprofit, which was what pushed me to pursue one. I am thankful for the journey and all the life experiences that came with it.
Dr. Fasika Teferra featured in Lights Camera Crohns: An Unobstructed view in March 2021. Click the image to visit the article.
Being a co-founder of a nonprofit working in the IBD sector meant a lot to me, IBD patients, and the community in general. Since IBD had been assumed as rare in our country, IBD patients found comfort in knowing that there is an organization dedicated solely to increasing awareness to the condition. It also helped me to sharpen my leadership, communication and many other skills as I was the only one in the public talking about my condition. It also meant a lot for the community in general as I got feedback from many other people living with other noncommunicable diseases to see if they can replicate my path and raise awareness about their conditions as well! I had such a great impact that it shocked many to hear that I resigned 3 years into this work.
As I was starting out, I made a commitment to myself to create some type of ground work before I even attempt to apply for a grant. My reasoning was that since there is virtually no data on the condition and no one coming forward saying they had IBD, I believed I had to have a track record of projects and impact to convince the grant makers. In my mind, since those around me didn’t even grasp what IBD was, how can an institution support my vision for the IBD community? It had been so stigmatized that it took me well over two years to even get people to join our virtual community. Almost 3 years of full time service for this cause helped me learn a lot of things, especially when it came to grants and community work.
Dr. Fasika Teferra featured in The Guardian in October 2022. Article by Saeed Kamali Dehghan. Click on the image to visit the article.
From my perspective, I believe I took the right path as I was starting out. But as time went by, I realized how hard it was to receive any funding to local grassroots organizations. For the most part, there was a need for data as proof of the number of people living with IBD (rightfully so), but there needed to be some form of financial support to conduct that research. I was also introduced to the term social enterprise in the middle of my journey. Having worked with my husband in growing his business, I realized that it is not just nonprofits that do good in the community, and that is is all about mindset.
I would not have changed anything if I were to go back in time. I think my time in the nonprofit sector has taught me so much in terms of resource utilization and the skill to craft services tailored to the community’s need. After asking all the relevant offices, I have learned that there is no special license for social enterprise. After speaking to a couple of social entrepreneurs, I realized that social entrepreneurship is nothing but a mindset, atleast in my country. Having gone through the challenges of financial support for the organization while working full time as a volunteer for 3 years, I understand that it is now time to use my resources to create a system where I can multiply and triple what I have so I can be one of the local donors to this and other initiatives in Ethiopia.
I think being a first-time mom, being in remission, and having a strong desire to be a change maker in the healthcare system in Ethiopia has made me sit down and re-think a lot of things. Time and energy are resources that are precious in my opinion, and recalibrating those to maximize my impact in my community was crucial. Most don’t understand my decision, but that is okay. I believe that passion and vision mature and take different routes than anticipated, and I can only show the vision I have in my mind by bringing it to life. Although it is multifaceted, I have already taken the first step, and is almost ready for implementation. It has been a passion of mine to work on health literacy, but doing it in a way that is sustainable and most impactful had been a mystery to me until recently. I will be sharing my initiative in detail in the next article as it might be modified and replicated in other parts of the world.