This modest woman Alemwork Gediyhun from Zigm village of Awi Zone in Amhara region is quite diffident to speak about her success. At the face value, she looks shy and it takes time to cajole out her feeling about her achievement; with 3.94 CGPA, she has outclassed all female graduates.
Married at 13, to Mr Bekele Alemayehu, Director of Adisse Primary School in Awi zone has always been encouraging her to study further and had their first girl child after she passed Grade 10. Her father, Mr Gediyhun Bogale and mother Yishamush Getahun wanted her to be a doctor, but she had to be content with Rural Development and Agricultural Extension because of inadequate percentile.
Of 4 siblings, 3 are into farming and one brother is a businessman; she is 3rd among them. Having grown up in a male chauvinistic society, she wants her daughter Hannah to get best care so that she can avail quality education, inculcate reading habit and become self-reliant. Providing better sustenance to daughter is her deep desire as it will empower her to be fit and tackle any sorts of challenges in life!
During pandemic she had been supporting farmer parents and could make them understand importance of innovative technology to enhance crop yield and continued to study. Upon reaching AMU Campus after 5 months, she started investing 4 hours regularly to learn. Regretting absence of internet access in her village, she said, it was handicap, but she received equal attention from teachers that helped her to make up the leeway; thus, she got 22 A+, few As and only B in Civic and Ethical Education.
Pursuing her research topic - ‘Problems and Prospects of Farmer Training Centre,’ she found that most of the rural farmers didn’t get training in different aspects of farming because there is total lack of extension works. Therefore, she urged government to provide extension facilities that will enable them to learn and understand usage of advanced techniques, improve yield and life itself.
She adds, rural development in Agricultural Extension facilitates training in rural areas, creates innovation and different technologies to boost productivity that fetches better value for crops in the market. Having studied this, she said, I will propagate innovative technologies like rainwater harvesting and importance of modern farming among them for water scarcity is the bottleneck in producing better crops, he quipped.
Attributing the credit of her success to her husband, parents and teachers, she said, without their support I couldn’t have achieved it. Similarly, reading books is her hobby that she would like to pass it on to her daughter to make her a good human being because ‘knowledge’ makes the man perfect, she opined.
Advising future female graduates, she said, girls must not get trapped into romantic affairs instead they should concentrate on education that’s what their priority should be and deviating from it will cost them dearly. Therefore, think wisely, plan appropriately and work hard to get better results; the rest can wait, she stressed.
(Communication Affaires Directorate)