{"id":282440,"date":"2019-07-25T07:24:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-25T11:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?guid=1c554860035b71736f083bb714c150ad"},"modified":"2026-10-14T13:07:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T17:07:31","slug":"wolkite-university-theatre-ethnic-divides","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/282440","title":{"rendered":"Wolkite University uses theatre to bridge ethnic divides among Ethiopian students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At Wolkite University in southern Ethiopia, theatre students research another ethnic group's culture and then perform it on stage, in a course designed to ease ethnic tension on campus.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"size-large wp-image-837764\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/meskel-festival-ethiopia-crowd.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Crowds at a Meskel festival celebration in Ethiopia\" \/><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Crowds at a Meskel festival celebration in Ethiopia (EsubalewA \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Guardian reported in July 2019 that the university, founded about six years earlier, had struggled with clashes between its nearly 15,000 students, who come from across a country with more than 80 ethnic groups and languages.<\/p>\n<p>Former lecturer Asteway Mellese described small disputes, such as a football collision or a quarrel over which group's music to play first on the annual culture day, turning into mass fights. Language was another flashpoint: universities teach in English, but some freshman Oromo students went on strike in 2018 demanding instruction in Afaan Oromo. Students from different regions no longer shared dormitories.<\/p>\n<p>Mellese designed a course built on indigenous research and performance. Students spend two weeks doing field research on a particular ethnic group, learning about its food, language and concerns, and then write a play performed before the whole university. Some plays have gone on to national theatre festivals and television.<\/p>\n<p>Yitbarek Alebachew, a second-year student from Hawassa, studied Gurage culture in Wolkite and wrote a love story around a Gurage wedding. Lecturer Abule Debebe said students who took the course showed more tolerance and respect for other groups.<\/p>\n<p>According to the Guardian, the syllabus was later adopted by Mekelle, Adigrat and Aksum universities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2019\/jul\/25\/ethiopia-university-using-drama-to-bridge-ethnic-divides\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Guardian<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At Wolkite University in southern Ethiopia, theatre students research another ethnic group&#8217;s culture and then perform it on stage, in a course designed to ease ethnic tension on campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837764,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-282440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/meskel-festival-ethiopia-crowd.jpg?fit=1280%2C844&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1btu","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282440","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282440"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837770,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282440\/revisions\/837770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}