Teshome Birhanu, an Ethiopian Migrant who puts Stockholm as a European Cultural Capital

With offices in Stockholm and Addis, and supported by several Swedish organizations as well as the Nordic Culture Fond, SELAM promotes festivals, concerts, tours, club nights and forums presenting global music in professional venues, such as the Stockholm Culture Festival. But, who is behind such big initiative which is bringing thousands of music fans together every summer in Stockholm not to mention other other cultural event?

Teshome, a musician from the start, trained in Russia, but born and raised in Ethiopia and came to Sweden in 1990. Seven years later, he founded SELAM, which is a cultural organization which deals with music, organizing festivals, concerts, club nights and tours throughout Sweden. SELAM focus mostly on music from Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and invites international guests to Sweden and organizes events in places like Konsterthuset, Södra teatern, Nalen etc. It also works with international cultural exchanges between Sweden and Africa and supports the Ethiopian cultural work with the skills, contacts, organizing festivals and much more.

Teshome Wondimu started playing with different bands at various locations in the suburbs of Stockholm in the 1990s. But soon he realized why they [ musicians with foreign background] were not allowed to play

As Wazema Radio turns one, its editor shares some thoughts

Argaw Ashine has served as a journalist for 18 years at different media organizations inside Ethiopia, including governmental, private and foreign media outlets. He was also in charge of various journalism unions in the country.

Ashine was one of the people whose names were listed in a Wikileaks report as a main source for the now defunct Addis-Neger Amharic newspaper. He left Ethiopia on September 2011 after the Ethiopian Federal Police gave him the ultimatum of either revealing his government sources or fleeing the country. He now resides in the U.S. and works as a researcher in media related issues. He also volunteers as the editor-in-chief for Wazema Radio – a dissident podcast he established together with other exiled Ethiopian journalists from Sweden and North America.
iREFUGEE talked to Ashine in an exclusive interview about his work at Wazema Radio — which marked its first anniversary this past June  — and also discussed the release of jailed Ethiopian writers and other matters related to the Ethiopian media.
How and by whom was Wazema Radio established?
ASHINE: Wazema Radio was launched in June 2014 by four exiled journalists, namely the trio of the