Mulugeta Afrework

Ethiopian educator and women's rights advocate who pioneered girls' education in rural regions

Mulugeta Afrework (1905-1972) was a visionary educator and social reformer from Ethiopia who dedicated her life to expanding access to education for girls in rural areas. Born into a family of traditional weavers in the Amhara region, she defied cultural norms by becoming one of the first women to complete secondary education in Ethiopia. Her groundbreaking work began in the 1930s when she established the first girls' boarding school in the village of Debre Markos, providing shelter and education to girls from impoverished families.

Through her innovative community-based education model, she trained local women as teachers and created mobile classrooms that traveled between villages. Her efforts led to a 300% increase in female literacy rates in her region by 1950. In 1948 she co-founded the Ethiopian Women's Association, which later became the country's leading organization for women's empowerment. Her memoir My Journey Through Shadows and Light (1967) remains a seminal text on African women's leadership.

Despite opposition from traditional leaders, she successfully lobbied Emperor Haile Selassie to include girls' education in national policy. Her legacy is honored today through the Mulugeta Scholarship Fund, which has supported over 5,000 girls since 1990. Her story is chronicled in the documentary Threads of Change: Ethiopia's Education Pioneer (2015) and the biography Light in the Dark: The Life of Mulugeta Afrework (2018).