ABOUT US
One Day Seyoum (ODS) is a community-led organisation focused on human rights abuses in Eritrea and against Eritrean refugees. We execute targeted campaigns to stop abuses. We produce media, art and events to raise awareness and foster outrage about the issues we work on. We organise capacity building training for activists to increase the strength of the movement. We mobilise our members and wider community to take action.
A decade since its founding, ODS is one of the most prominent Eritrean human rights organisations in exile. We have over 500 members and combine virtual and in-person activities to achieve impact. Our membership mostly comprises of young people and are a mix of Eritrea and diaspora-born Eritreans, and allies. ODS focuses heavily on community engagement and has provided a unique space for people across the movement to meet, learn and get involved.
We are regularly invited to speak and collaborate by institutions like the United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and news organisations like CNN, BBC and Al Jazeera.
ODS was founded in 2013 by Vanessa Tsehaye and is named after her uncle Seyoum Tsehaye. Seyoum is one of the journalists imprisoned by the Eritrean government since their crackdown on political opposition and independent media in 2001.
Eritrea faces one of the world’s most dire human rights crises, with a government that suppresses dissent, and systematically deprives its citizens of fundamental freedoms and opportunities. Since the government’s crackdown on political opposition and the independent media in 2001, Eritrea has evolved into a repressive state. These conditions have forced thousands of Eritreans to flee the country, only to face further challenges as refugees navigate dangerous migration routes, hostile asylum systems, and inadequate support mechanisms.
Learn more about our key issues here.
KEY ISSUES
Our founder, Vanessa Tsehaye, was born in Sweden where she grew up hearing stories about her home country Eritrea. When she was five years old, she was told that her uncle Seyoum Tsehaye had been imprisoned without trial in Eritrea. The older she got, the more she learned about her uncle’s imprisonment and how it was connected to a larger human rights crisis in Eritrea.
In 2013, when Vanessa was sixteen years old, she started One Day Seyoum at her high school. She was tired of seeing how much her country was suffering and how little was being done about it. She started the organisation, named after her uncle, to continue his mission to speak up for the Eritrean people. One Day Seyoum referes to the dream that one day, Seyoum would be free and that one day, the Eritrea that he fought for would become reality.
The organisation first started spreading into more high schools in Sweden and then ultimately to schools and communities all over the world.
Learn more about Seyoum here.
