{"id":2480,"date":"2026-08-21T07:19:35","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T07:19:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/?p=2480"},"modified":"2026-08-21T07:19:35","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T07:19:35","slug":"disability-is-not-a-sentence-to-beg-the-painter-funding-wages-and-housing-through-traditional-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/disability-is-not-a-sentence-to-beg-the-painter-funding-wages-and-housing-through-traditional-art\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Disability is not a sentence to beg\u2019: the painter funding wages and housing through traditional art"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-path-to-node=\"5\">An Ethiopian entrepreneur who lost his mobility in childhood and missed out on formal schooling has built a successful religious art enterprise, demonstrating a sustainable model for micro-economic independence among disabled rural communities.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"6\">Ashagre Fekade, who was raised in a farming family, now runs a studio specialising in Ethiopian Orthodox church iconography. Having bootstrapped his business through small-scale trading and traditional weaving,\u00a0 Ashagre currently employs four local young people, paying up to 40,000 Ethiopian birr (\u00a3250) in monthly wages, and has funded the purchase of his own home.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"7\">Ashagre venture offers a practical solution to the severe economic exclusion faced by disabled people in rural Ethiopia, where access to formal education and institutional support remains low. Rather than relying on public charity, Ashagre initiated his own education, teaching himself to read and write in just 27 days through independent study.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"8\">To fund his artistic ambitions,\u00a0 Ashagre established a series of micro-enterprises. He initially sold eucalyptus saplings and <i data-path-to-node=\"8\" data-index-in-node=\"124\">gesho<\/i> (a local brewing ingredient), before expanding into handcrafting traditional embroidered towels (<i data-path-to-node=\"8\" data-index-in-node=\"227\">fota<\/i>) and caps. The revenue generated from these crafts covered his living costs and allowed him to buy his first painting supplies.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"9\">Although he initially sold his artwork below production costs to gain a foothold in the market, Ashagre gradually established a niche in church decoration and iconography, a business he has operated continuously since 1994.<\/p>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"10\">&#8220;Disability is not something that should push you onto the street to beg or force you to lose hope,&#8221; Ashagre said. &#8220;By strengthening yourself and remaining steadfast in your purpose, anyone can achieve results and transform their life.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An Ethiopian entrepreneur who lost his mobility in childhood and missed out on formal schooling has built a successful religious art enterprise, demonstrating a sustainable model for micro-economic independence among disabled rural communities. Ashagre Fekade, who was raised in a farming family, now runs a studio specialising in Ethiopian Orthodox church iconography. Having bootstrapped his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":2482,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[1582,1267,687,78,880,174,1301],"class_list":["post-2480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2483,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2480\/revisions\/2483"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2480"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ameco.et\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}