Welcome to Dreaming in Color, a show hosted by Darren Isom, a partner with The Bridgespan Group, that provides a space for social change leaders of color to reflect on how their unique life experiences personal and professional, have prepared them to lead and drive the impact we all seek. This season, we travel to Africa to highlight African leaders and the continent’s role as a key driver of global innovation and leadership.

In this episode Semhar Araia, CEO of the Diaspora Academy, discusses the transformative power of diasporic life—from visiting Eritrea as a teenager to working there professionally—highlighting the emotional and political significance of being both from a place and apart from it. She shares the story behind her name, revealing a powerful lineage tied to Eritrea’s struggle and resistance.

The conversation delves into the power of the diaspora and diasporic identity, particularly for Black and Brown communities, and the beauty of finding a sense of belonging across traditional borders. Semhar advocates for diasporic unity grounded in love, mutual recognition, and feminist values, arguing that the diaspora holds immense potential to reimagine global leadership and collective liberation. In recognition of the power of the diaspora we purposely start our journey through Africa with this conversation with Semhar in her home in DC.

This is Dreaming in Color, Africa.

Jump straight into:

00:00:45… Introduction of Semhar Araia

00:02:35… Semhar opens the conversation with an Invocation honoring her

00:03:55… Semhar’s early beginnings in an activist home in 1970’s New York

00:09:04… The importance of community – Semhar shares about her deep connection to Eritrean Diaspora community and how that sense of community has evolved

00:12:03… Going “home”, to Eritrea, at 13

00:14:20… Going back again, professionally, as a diasporan

00:16:12… Naming: the role of Semhar’s highly politicized name, and its connection to Eritrea’s struggle for independence, in her sense of “taking up space”

00:21:05… on deep impact of separation from homeland, and of connection…

00:25:47… The power of the diaspora movement, and how it is at once a feminist and a liberation movement