Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff
May 22nd, 2018
New York (TADIAS) — This week the Tafari Makonnen School Alumni Association in North America (TMSAANA) will hold its fourth biennial general assembly in Falls Church, Virginia.
Now renamed Entoto Technical & Vocational Education Training College, the Tafari Makonnen School that opened in 1925 was one of the premier modern educational institutions as well as the one of the most prestigious public schools in Ethiopia, graduating students who became the country’s first batch of diplomats, teachers, doctors, civil administrators, economists, senior military leaders, lawyers and professors.
The president of the TMS Alumni Association in North America (TMSAANA), Dr. Bisrat Aklilu — a retired United Nations official who graduated from the school in 1967 — points out that TMSAANA provides “financial support to 800 TMS students comprising of tuition support and payments to cover the monthly hygiene needs of 400 girls.”
In addition the upcoming event will feature a new book release by TMS Alumnus, Ermias Amare, Ye TMS Tezita, published by TMSAANA. “This is the second book that TMSAANA helped to publish; the first being Memoirs of a former TMS Teacher by the 95-year-old Roland Turenne, the only living Canadian Jesuit who taught at TMS for over 20 years and lived in Ethiopia for over 65 years,” shares Dr. Bisrat.
On its website TMSAANA highlights a quote from the school’s inaugural speech delivered on April 27, 1925 by its founder Emperor Haile Selassie who was then called Regent Ras Tafari Makonnen:
This school is an instrument which will operate on our country’s behalf through the knowledge which God gives to each of you according to your lot, once you have matured in wisdom and have become vigorous in intelligence. So I beg of you to help the school which nurtures you, give you the food of knowledge: to see that it does not shrink but expands, that it does not fall but grows in strength.”
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If You Go:
TMS Alumni Association in North America (TMSAANA)
4th General Assembly — May 26th, 2018
Falls Church, Virginia.
For more info email: alumni@tmsaana.com
www.tmsaana.com