Diaspora African Women’s Network

Semhar Araia, Founder & Executive Director
semhar@dawners.org
 
Semhar is Founder and Executive Director of the Diaspora African Women's Network (DAWN). A lawyer by training, she previously served as Oxfam International's Horn of Africa Regional Policy Advisor, a foreign policy legislative assistant in the House of Representatives and an Africa analyst for The Elders, an organization created by Nelson Mandela, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and eleven other world leaders. From 2002-2005, Semhar served as an attorney on the Eritrea-Ethiopia Claims Commission hearings. In 2008, she founded African Diaspora for Obama, a grassroots coalition of African diaspora communities and organizations united in support for Barack Obama, and later served on the Obama-Biden Presidential Transition Team.  

Semhar is a frequent guest speaker on US-Africa policy, effective advocacy strategies and community organizing. She was listed in The Root's Top 100, which recognizes emerging and established African-American leaders making extraordinary contributions and has been featured on National Public Radio, Voice of America, Christian Science Monitor, The Huffington Post, The Michael Eric Dyson Show, The Root, Arise Magazine, Straight Talk Africa and CNN.com. Semhar earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Saint Thomas in Saint Paul, Minnesota and her law degree from Marquette University Law School, with studies at American University’s Washington College of Law and Tel Aviv University. She was born in New York City to Eritrean immigrant parents and currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  

Rahama Wright, Director of Finance 
finance@dawners.org

Rahama serves on DAWN’s Executive Committee as the Director of Finance. She is the founder of Shea Yeleen International, a 501c3 that helps women in West Africa organize cooperatives, provides training on quality assurance and micro enterprise development, and brings shea butter products to market. Shea Yeleen is working to help over 700 women earn a living wage through the production and sale of shea butter. Shea Yeleen has been featured in Oprah Magazine, Real Simple, and Women's Health Magazine, NY 1, The Washington Informer, Rolling Out, Voice of America, and WPFW 89.3.  Rahama has also spoken at various events including the Goldman Sachs Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, Essence Magazine’s Young Womans’ Leadership Conference, BarCamp, the Secretary of State Global Diaspora Forum, and the Congressional Black Caucus Conference.   In 2008 the White House Project and O, Oprah Magazine selected Rahama as a national leader.

In her role as the DAWN Director of Finance Rahama assists the Executive Director in developing financial systems to ensure accountability and transparency. Rahama received her degree in International Relations from the State University of New York at Geneseo and has worked for Aguirre International, Georgetown University, and the Department of State. She’s an avid traveler and visited and worked in Afghanistan, Morocco, Namibia, Zambia, Kenya, Southern Sudan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Ghana. 
  

Lolla Mohammed Nur, DAWN Intern
admin@dawners.org

Lolla is DAWN’s first intern and a new member to DAWN. She is a freelance journalist and a student at the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, pursuing a bachelor’s in journalism and political science, with a concentration on development and a minor in African American and African studies. Lolla has worked as a reporter and/or columnist for the Minnesota Daily, the Twin Cities Daily Planet, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, and Voice of America Middle East. She has been interviewed on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and KFAI Radio.  

Lolla’s writing focuses on issues affecting communities of color, particularly from African immigrant or Muslim backgrounds.  She is interested in the formation of racial identities among Horn of Africa diaspora and hopes to pursue graduate research in critical development, media, and race studies.