Charity is Beauty

Anna Getaneh is a stunning beauty and one of the pioneering Ethiopians who have paved the way for the nation’s dynamic fashion industry.

African Mosaique was created by Anna Getaneh, its Managing and Creative Director. Anna is a fashion-cultural enthusiast, humanitarian, and an acclaimed former international model. From her base in Paris and New York City, her modeling career spanned close to 10 years, working with renowned designers such as Christian Lacroix, Ungaro, Yves St. Laurent, Ralph Lauren, Escada, and Donna Karan. African Mosaique shows have been presented in various international centers, such as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., the Fashion Institute, New York, the Carrousel du Louvre in Paris and Sheraton Addis in Ethiopia.
She has featured in numerous fashion magazines such as Vogue, Elle, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Amina, and has hosted various events, such as the Soul Train music show, the BBC documentary “African Footsteps”, the KORA All Africa Music Awards and Miss Malaika Beauty Pageant in South Africa.
Anna’s hallmark is her passion about children and development. She has done global advocacy work for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, on African themes. Notably, she has spearheaded the establishment of The Ethiopian Children’s Fund (www.ethiopianchildrensfund.org).
Tedla Desta of Capital has discussed with her on numerous matters. Excerpts of the interview follow:

Capital:-Tell us about yourself briefly.
Anna Getaneh:-Currently I am living in South Africa and I have two children. I was a full time model in New York. As my father was a diplomat, we used to travel a lot; I lived in Paris, Belgium, and Sweden. I lived in Ethiopia for only three years, but I have been coming to Addis every year sporadically since we started Ethiopian Children’s Fund for the past 10 years, and the main reason is to follow up the work. I currently have a design house called African Mosaique launched in 2004, which initially started as a fund raising platform for African designers and Africans in the industry but now I have commercialized it. I have a shop in South Africa and export to the United States of America. I am also working with Ethiopian weavers in silk. Every year, we do an event here in Addis Ababa sponsored by the Ethiopian Airlines and Sheraton Addis and we showcase their collection and we always have guest African designers to help the Ethiopian Children’s Fund. However, this year, because it’s our millennium, we have a special program .We will have the very veteran Ethiopian designers all the way to the very young designers, Ras Kassa, designers from the Diaspora, international designers like Amsale Abera and our locally established designers like Gigi, Sara,Guenet. And we have a guest designer Alpha D, who is a number one designer now. All the designers help us for free.

Capital-What is the Ethiopian Children’s Fund (ECF)?
Anna Getaneh:- The Ethiopian Children’s Village is our first project in Ethiopia, established as an NGO in Ethiopia. I was living in New York then, so it was registered as an NGO. I was fund raising initially to support existing organizations. At that time (1995-96), we supported the Shashemene School for the Blind, Sidest Kilo School of Charity Children and the Abebech Gobena orphanage. After two years, I felt that it was time to embark on our own project, and that is when I decided to first identify the land, we wanted it to be a rural project but at the same time not to be off the main road. And after research in the area, we decided on Aleltu located 55 kilometers from Addis Ababa as we felt there was no aid origination and we could really have an impact over the years. In 1997, we got l7ha of land and opened the school in 1999. Uninterrupted for the past eight years, we have been taking 30 to 40 students. Now we have 350 kids that we provide full care, nutrition, health care, education. The first group is going to graduate next year. Most of them are orphans but they go to the community and live with their relatives but have their evening meals with us. We have 32 staff members now most of whom come from the neighboring community. We grow our crops by the farmers and generate our own milk. We have science, computer labs and a library. But we built it in phases. When we started, our children were between the ages of 4 and 6. Now we are in the 3rd phase, the students are 9-l0th graders and our last phase will be the vocational school.

Capital- What initiated you to assist children?
Anna Getaneh:- Like I said when I came to Ethiopia, I had the specific goal of wanting to help. I was not clear in the first place of how I could help. When I was living in Paris, I came to visit a refugee camp in Moyale Kenya and spent about a week there, that is when I decided that children are the most vulnerable and I came back the following month for the first time in 12 -13 years, I decided it was time for me to focus on child care and that is why we were drawn to Abebech Gobena and other child organizations. So we have the first girl’s football club because they wanted to play football and we encouraged them and they are very good, and theater class to help the children explore themselves. We have kids of various backgrounds and religions. And that was the school type I was looking for. We do annual fund raising as much as required. We have a lot of aid from the USAID, Irish Aid, German GTZ and individuals who sponsor children.

Capital- What is African Mosaique actually contributing to the welfare of Ethiopian children? What is its contribution to the growth of design art in Ethiopia?
Anna Getaneh-I started African Mosaique when I used to live in New York. I came with a group of friends and told them I am in the fashion industry. I don’t see African ‘ designers in the fashion industry. I have always been interested about promoting African culture but. I never knew how I was going to bring it together until I started ECF. I thought it was great, that I can also promote African designers, textiles etc. So it all started very informally. Then we had our first big show which became successful. I visited a lot of designers and traveled extensively in the continent. It was very much a culture program; we only came together and had an event and invited designers, they showcased their work and promoted it. Then of course, the funds went to ECF and it was only after I retired from modeling, I moved from New York to South Africa and wanted to sustain, not wanting to wait for an event a year. As there were people who needed to be promoted and showcased, I started working with some of the designers who were talented and had potential. To sort of guide them, I started designing my own collection. using fabrics from these various cultures and together we continued creating a Mosaique. Now it has a business wing and a non profit wing because we still do fund raising.

Capital – How do you analyze designing in Ethiopia and designers as well?
Anna Getaneh – Over the 10 years I have been closely following Ethiopian fashion. It is just exploding! I come every six months and I see new stores opening up. It was only in some stores that we used to find certain fabrics but now you can find it in most places. For us it was difficult selecting for the millennium collection so we took samples from each group because there are so many talented designers. It is really exiting because I think that it is important for us to sustain our weavers and traditions because we get a lot of products that are made in China which are cheap, contemporary and easy to find. I think we have such a unique weaving technique and culture that it is very important to sustain it. Our traditional clothes have to be refreshed so that they could be worn every time, so it is wonderful that we can see creative expression among the young designers etc. All in all it is great; they also follow trends closely. It has great potential for the future and has to be organized. Every one of us, by wearing something that is in our tradition, is actually helping our local designers. It has also a huge potential internationally as well.

Capital-What do you plan to do in the future?
Anna Getaneh- Well, I will continue what I am doing now. I am now a happy mother of two kids so they need my attention. I don’t model anymore. I want to continue promoting Ethiopian designers as I do with pan-African designers.

Capital:- Any comments in closing?
Anna Getaneh- Well, our show is on Tuesday. Tickets are on sale and we hope to get a great turnout. It is open to the public and many famous designers are coming. We have around 40 models. so it is going to be a grand occasion.