“I was born in Ethiopia and came here to Australia with my sister when I was 6 years old. Of all the places we could’ve ended up, we ended up in Australia and of all the parts of Australia we could’ve ended up, we ended up here in the Northern Rivers in little old Lismore. So lucky! So, so lucky!
I think I’m definitely one of the luckiest people in the world. To grow up in a community like this is so good. You are surrounded by role models, people who you really admire and look up to, people who are active and who are engaged and encouraging in your life. It’s one thing to have that in your family but to have it in your community too, that’s just on a dreamland level.
We picked up English pretty quickly because Mum and Dad were so organised and they made sure they were really educated about the process. Dad was also studying to be a Primary School teacher at the time. Our Primary school teachers had little Amharic Dictionaries on their desks so they could figure out what we were saying. On the first day of school, it was only my sister who was supposed to be going. I went along and was ready to go to school too. We walked my sister in on the first day and in I went as well. I didn’t have a bag or lunch because I wasn’t meant to be going. My teacher, Miss Banks who is absolutely amazing and taught me to read and write at school, she was like… Just let her come in. Dad brought in my lunch later and there I stayed.
I really enjoyed school. I went to Coffee Camp for Primary School and Trinity for high school and I was honoured to be School Captain at both schools. School is fabulous. Fundamentally school can be just an education institution and you can see it as a chore but you can make it so much more than that. I’ve had amazing teachers who were so encouraging of me doing further studies or researching areas I’m interested in and doing extra curricular activities. That’s what makes your school experience unique to other peoples, is by adding your interests. The great thing about the 2 schools I went to was, not only did they give me a high level of quality education but they also provided me with good morals and values and ethics to be able to go out into the world with a lot of courage and a lot of conviction and a lot of pride to want to make the world a better place.
Mum always reminds us that it takes a village to raise a child. Anything I’ve done is simply a credit to both my parents and my family but also my community. They’ve been so dedicated and they instilled a lot of empowerment into me to think that I really can do anything which is definitely a driving force.
I didn’t really know what I was going to do when I finished school. I went on a trip with some friends and their Dads’ to Darwin and that was amazing, to be exposed to that landscape. You can’t come back the same. I loved it soooo much. Since leaving school I’ve been working. I love my jobs. I’m so fortunate to have 2 jobs that I really love. Bees! What can I say other than I love Bees and I can’t stop smiling when I say the word Bees. Bees really have been a repeating motif throughout my life. On both sides of my family I’m a 4th generation Beekeeper and my family in Ethiopia were also Beekeepers. I remember the morning that my first swarm arrived. My Mum had dropped my sister off at the bus stop and she honked the horn from the carport. She said.… You better go outside because some sort of God has been listening to you. I walked out and there was the smallest swarm of bees on a tiny Banksia and that’s how it started. I’m in absolute awe of Bees. I’m obsessed! Dad’s always saying, those poor Bees, you never leave them alone (laughs). It’s true!
I’ve been Beekeeping in the Northern Rivers for 11 years now. I’ve been a part of lots of Beekeeping groups. I’ve attended Beekeeping conferences. All my school projects related to Bees. My friend reminded me of a time when we were trying to raise money for an endangered species. Everyone was doing like, Sumatran Tigers, etc, and she said…You were there going, we need to do Bees. I listen to Podcasts about Bees, I watch Youtube videos on Bees. In 2015 I was the far North Coast Lions Youth of the Year. My 5 minute speech was about the importance of Bees in this world. Since finishing school I’ve been working with commercial and recreational Beekeepers in my spare time. This last season I’ve been helping people who are interested in starting their Beekeeping journey. It’s so fulfilling watching people become just as obsessed as me.
I work at Santosha Mushroom Farm and for Flow Hive who have very generously taken me on. I feel like I’ve peaked way too early in my workplace. As young people, born into a climate crisis and an ecological crisis, when you are entering the workforce, you really want to make sure, or it’s more important to you, that the companies you are working for mirror your ethics and values. For me, definitely having environmental protocols is really important. There will be companies that say, Sometimes you need to separate your work from your ethics but there’s no room for that. That’s why I’m really glad that I love both my jobs. I get to enter the workforce with these kind of people, people who are my idols and I look up to every single day. I just have a high standard for life now.
I’m doing my 3rd installment of my Beekeeping course which is a Cert 3 in Beekeeping through the Department of Primary Industries. It’s the highest qualification you can get in Australia to date but they are working on a Cert 4 which will be exciting. This week is all about Queen breeding and looking at the genetics of your Queens. It’s all so interesting and I love it. People think Bees, honey, you see this little box with Bees flying in and out but it’s the biggest misconception. They are just fooling you. Inside is the most complex systems and so difficult to understand.”