Meadna's interview with Senai Solommon
   
   
Meadna has been conducting a series of interviews with active young Eritreans who are striving to better their community, country and themselves through education and chosen career. Here is meadna’s interview with Senai Solommon, an Eritrean from Denmark. Senai is a Chairman of Denmark-Young PFDJ. He earned his bachelor's degree in Communication and International Marketing from Copenhagen Business School. He runs his own Advertising and Graphic Designs Company. We thank Senai for sharing his experience and answering our questions on youth activities, business, and other topics.
    
 
 

 

Meadna - Please tell us a little about yourself and your role in the youth activties?

Senai - My name is Senai Solommon. I was born in Khartoum, Sudan in 1983 and came to Denmark when I was one year old. I have studied Communication and International Marketing at Copenhagen Business School and received my bachelor's degree two years ago. After that I've studied different economic courses and aim to achieve a Masters on this field.

My role in young PFDJ Denmark is as the general secretary/chairman. I have previously been the chairman of the youth association from 2002 until 2006. With the youth association we did a lot to create a unity among the Eritrean youth of our generation in Copenhagen. We did this through parties, events, sports activities and history lessons.

We managed to not only integrate and create friendships between our generation of young Eritreans in Copenhagen, but different age-groups of young Eritreans in not only Copenhagen, but other cities in Denmark and Scandinavia. The youth association has managed to build up a lot the last years when I look back, but now it faces new challenges with the younger generation having to take over more responsibilities and understanding the meaning of the association and why it is important to be organized. The last year, I have obviously been busy with YPFDJ Denmark and it has been a great learning experience working with such talented and conscious young Eritreans in Denmark and Scandinavia.

Meadna - What do you want specialize in?

Senai - I would like to specialize on micro economics. I found the subject very interesting and useful on every aspect in life. Everything you do in life is an investment and you have to calculate on costs, risks and return of investment.

Meadna - How did you become interested in micro economics?

Senai - Like I mentioned, I finished my bachelor in Communication and International Marketing. After that I started my company with my best friend. We have worked with selling outdoor advertising and graphic designs. My interest of field has gone from marketing more to economics and having an overview of budgets. I felt that my education was too narrow and decided to take different economic courses on BA and Masterslevel. Courses like Organizational principles, finance, micro economics, macro economics and stock valuation. I find a lot of subjects interesting. I wish I could also be able to study political science, history, journalism, graphic designing and so many other things. But unfortunately life is short and I have chosen to "invest" my capabilities in what I'm doing today.

Meadna - You’ve been successful in setting up your own business, many people aspire to own their own business what does it take to make it? 

Senai - I have always wanted to start my own business sooner or later. It got the opportunity sooner than I had ever expected. I learned that it is not easy and that it requires patience, hard work, will, energy, time, determination and sometimes a little bit of luck.It requires planning, structure, organization, good strategy and an eye for opportunities and decision-making.

When we started we had some difficulties. We made some wrong/unlucky choices to begin with and therefore we lost a lot of money on investments we should not have made. Through hard work, good strategy, good decisions and a little bit of luck we quickly managed to turn things around and we are slowly starting to enjoy the fruits of our hard work. The bad investments we did in the beginning seem like good investments today because we have learned so much. I think that it is also very important to have good and experienced advisers around you if you want to start you own business. We were unlucky on that part to begin with and therefore we oversaw some mistakes.

If you are afraid of the risk, then it is very important to find some experienced advisers.I would recommend being independent to anyone who have the energy, will, interest and courage to do it. In Europe a lot of immigrant groups such as Arabs, Turks, Pakistanis and others very quickly start their businesses because they quickly find fellow countrymen who can advise them. I think the problem with our parents’ generation is that they have not found Eritreans to advise them about being independent and starting their businesses in the country they are living in.

Meadna - The activities of Young PFDJ in Denmark received a lot of admiration from many people, can you tell us a little about the projects and the activities you do to raise political and ideological consciousness as well as current issues?

Senai - Well, we meet very frequently. We try to all meet at least once every week and have political discussions, presentations about ideology, our fundamental politics and current issues. Furthermore we are all separated in different project groups, so every project group will appoint meetings with each other to speed up every project and separate, the political and ideological meetings/schooling from the projects, so that we are as effective as possible.

Regarding the projects, we have "the hidri project" which is a money collection for children of martyrs through boxes that we have delivered in Eritrean homes. We have a documentary project where we interview the first PFDJ members that came to Denmark in the 1970's. Members that was very politically active during this crucial period in our history. Here we try to find out what measures they used, why they came to Denmark, which challenges they had and what kind of political affiliations they create and at the same use parallels to the political situation in Eritrea and the world in that period through different movie clips. We will soon move on to do interviews with those that came in the 1980's. Seeing how good the EPLF was at documenting the struggle and how much inspiration and value it gives us today, we felt that it was our duty to document the parallel struggle for independence that went on in Denmark and hope to inspire other countries to do this project, so that the equally important struggle that took place in Diaspora is documented in old movie clips and interviews.

We also produced a lot of good t-shirt that has become our trademark at the conference and they have been very popular. We have not been able to send out all orders that were made at the conference, because we were outsold soon after we came home. But we have a delivery coming in a week and will be able to provide the youth in Europe with these popular t-shirts. We are making a fair progress in creating important relations with Danish political youth parties and Medias.

Meadna - How successful have you been in achieving your objectives?  What are your future plans?

Senai - I think that we the first year as YPFDJ we managed to do a lot of the projects that we planned to do. But we are far from where we would like to be.The more we work together, and the more conscious we get, the more we realize how much we should do that we are not already doing and what our responsibilities are. We do not lack ideas, but time and perhaps manpower as those two things are connected.

Sustainability was a key word at the conference and we have to on becoming sustainable.  The future plan is to keep on learning more about world politics and Eritrea, use financial aid that are available from government and NGO institutions, give more help to the youth association, create bilateral relations with more Danish associations and also other African/middle eastern associations in Denmark that can help us politically.

We've also been inspired a lot by projects that other European YPFDJ movements were doing. Sweden has very strong media-groups which has always inspired me. Norway, Holland and Australia had many good and important statistics about Eritreans in their countries which I think is a very good idea. But it's all about taking one step at a time.

Meadna – what was your impression of the 3rd YPFDJ conference?

Senai - I think the conference was great. I have great admiration for the UK YPFDJ branch. We were all very impressed with their preparation and the facilities that they had prepared for us. I also participated at the conference in Stockholm last year and I think these conferences are a unique way for different youth associations, media-groups, YPFDJ branches to inspire and get inspired. We get the opportunity to share our experiences, views and ideas. Furthermore we had the opportunity to hear Yemane Ghebreab and Zemheret Yohannes and ask important national questions.  

Meadna - Who are your Mentors or people you look up to?

Senai - My parents first and foremost, they were both active in the struggle and like many Eritreans they were forced to flee during the war and have both been through a lot and raised me and my brother well. It's very difficult for me to point out mentors. I admire many individuals, but our people's courage and resilience through all our obstacles and suffering is what drives me in my everyday life.