Henok Mengistu, Ethiopique receives an award from LION Publishers

Impact snapshot from a Press Forward grantee newsroom

By Mark Glaser

Who: Henok Mengistu, founder and publisher of Ethiopique

Where: The “DMV”: Washington, D.C. metro area with Maryland and Virginia

What: Ethiopique is the only Amharic-language local news and community platform in the U.S., reaching more than 100,000 Ethiopian and Eritrean people in the District of Columbia region. The site includes news, civic information, immigration updates, public safety and community issues directly affecting immigrants who often aren’t covered in other news publications. Mengistu, who is also an Obama Fellow, says he started the platform “out of a real need when our community didn’t receive life-saving information during a tornado warning.” Ethiopique won a Public Service Award from LION Publishers last year, and Press Forward funding allowed it to bring on more reporters, resulting in a tripling of website traffic and a dramatic increase in social media engagement, Mengistu said. 

Why: Ethiopique’s mission is to empower, inform and connect the Amharic-speaking community through trusted content that resonates and represents its people. The platform provides news, educational resources and storytelling that enable informed decision-making, celebrate cultural identity and reflect the community’s lived experiences. Ethiopique serves as both a credible source of information and a reflection of the community, while using in-person events and social media to foster deeper engagement.

How: Ethiopique has grown from a news site to a community hub thanks to these events and best practices:

Readers submit story ideas, ask questions and directly participate in reporting. For example, Mengistu says that interviews with public officials regularly include questions submitted by readers. Ethiopique also conducts community surveys and listening sessions to guide their reporting.

Ethiopique joined the Adopt a Road program.

• One unique community-building idea was joining the Adopt-a-Road program, with a group of folks in the Ethiopique community going out to clean a road in Silver Springs, Maryland, each month (pictured above). The cleanups offer a way to build bridges between different parts of the community. “Local residents learn about the cultures and customs of immigrant neighbors, and immigrants learn about everyday life in America,” Mengistu said. “What starts as a cleanup becomes a simple but powerful way to bring people together.”
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  The “Fishing with Ethiopique” program brings families together.

  Another in-person gathering is “Fishing with Ethiopique,” a place for families to share experiences and children to learn how to fish (pictured below). The events have helped the news outlet build trust and relationships in the community, so that they consider Ethiopique as a part of their everyday lives.

Quotable: “Press Forward funding gave Ethiopique the ability to move out of survival mode and into planning mode. It allowed us to build a foundation that includes professional tools, stronger systems and financial credibility. Ethiopique is now positioned to scale that foundation into a permanent institution serving immigrant communities across the region.”