Agitu Gudeta

 Agitu Created A Standard Of Excellence!

Tributes paid to Ethiopian refugee farmer who championed integration in
Italy

Agitu
Ideo Gudeta, who was killed on Wednesday, used abandoned land to start a goat
farming project employing migrants and refugees

Agitu
Ideo Gudeta started with just 15 goats, increasing the herd to 180 in just a
few years. 

Tributes
have been paid to a 42-year-old Ethiopian refugee and farmer who became a
symbol of integration in Italy, her adopted home.

Agitu
Ideo Gudeta was attacked and killed, allegedly by a former employee, on her
farm in Trentino on Wednesday.

Gudeta
had left Addis Ababa in 2010 after angering the authorities by taking part in
protests against “land grabbing”. Once in Italy, she tenaciously
followed and realised her ambition to move to the mountains and start her own
farm. Taking advantage of permits that give farmers access to abandoned public
land in depopulated areas, she reclaimed 11 hectares (27 acres) around an old
barn in the Mòcheni valley, where she founded her La Capra Felice (The
Happy Goat) enterprise.

Gudeta
started with a herd of 15 goats, quickly rising to 180 in a few years,
producing organic milk and cheese using environmentally friendly methods and
hiring migrants and refugees.

“I
created my space and made myself known, there was no resistance to me,” she
told Reuters news agency that year.

“Agitu
brought to Italy the dream she was unable to realise in Ethiopia,
in part because of land grabbing,” Gabriella Ghermandi, singer, performer,
novelist and friend of Gudeta, told the Guardian. “Her farm was successful
because she applied what she had learned from her grandparents in the
countryside.

 “In Italy, many people have described her
enterprise as a model of integration. But Agitu’s dream was to create an
environmentally sustainable farm that was more than just a business; for her it
also symbolised struggle against class divisions and the conviction that living
in harmony with nature was possible. And above all she carried out her work
with love. She had given a name to each one of her goats.”

In
a climate where hostility toward migrants was increasing, led by far-right
political leaders, her success story was reported by numerous media outlets as an example of how
integration can benefit communities.

“The
most rewarding satisfaction is when people tell me how much they love my
cheeses because they’re good and taste different,” she said in an interview with Internazionale in 2017. “It
compensates for all the hard work and the prejudices I’ve had to overcome as a
woman and an immigrant.”

Two
years ago she received death threats and was the target of racist attacks,
which she reported to police, recounting them on her social media posts.

But
police said a man who has confessed to the rape and murder of the farmer was an
ex-employee who, they said, allegedly acted for “economic reasons”.

Agitu
Ideo Gudeta produced organic milk and cheese using environmentally friendly
methods. Photograph: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

The
UN refugee agency said it was “pained” by Gudeta’s death, and that her
entrepreneurial spirit “demonstrated how refugees can contribute to the societies
that host them”.

“Despite
her tragic end, the UNHCR hopes that Agitu Ideo Gudeta will be remembered and
celebrated as a model of success and integration and inspire refugees that
struggle to rebuild their lives,” the agency said.

“We
spoke on the phone last week’’, said Ghermandi. “We spent two hours speaking
about Ethiopia. We had plans to get together in the spring. Agitu considered
Italy her home. She used to say that she had suffered too much in Ethiopia. Now
Agitu is gone, but her work mustn’t die. We will soon begin a fundraising
campaign to follow her plan for expanding the business so that her dream will
live on.”

Gudeta
would have turned 43 on New Year’s Day.

Source: The Guardian |  Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo | Fri 1 Jan 2021 02.24 EST | Photographs: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuter