About

Setaweet Story

Setaweet is a contemporary feminist movement founded in 2014. The Setaweet Movement aims to articulate Ethiopian feminism and creates space for dialogue, research, and activism by Ethiopian women and men. Setaweet has hosted various campaigns in the last few years on gender-based violence including #WhatSheWore, #Arif_Abatt, promoting engaged fatherhood, and the #Lik-Aydelem and #Ahunim_Alrefedem campaigns which draw attention to the prevalence of sexual violence in Ethiopia.  

The Setaweet flagship project, the Gendershops, is a feminist curriculum for secondary schools designed to aid the exploration of issues such as femininities and masculinities, healthy relationships, and self-esteem. Alegnta, the Setaweet hotline offers free psycho-social counseling for survivors of sexual violence, and from late 2023 onwards, will be available as a mobile app to report instances of gender-based violence and collect data. 

Setaweet has been working on feminist movement building and documentation through many projects including the Meqenet TV show, the Articulating Feminism podcast, and our social media activism. On the political participation front, Setaweet was selected by the Ethiopian National Election Board to host debates between political parties in 2021, which we followed with a series of Policy Dialogues to politicize gender equality and to offer inputs on the revision of the Ethiopian Constitution from a feminist perspective. These efforts have grown into a National Women’s Forum that was held in June 2022, and a National Women’s Conference to be held in April 2023, an event that will bring together women’s rights groups, grassroots associations, and activists in order to build a united Ethiopian feminist movement.  

The Setaweet Story is just beginning, and our commitment to serving Ethiopian women is unwavering.