About the Instructor

Fisihazen Fitwi, is a Tigrinya instructor based out of Boston, Massachusetts with a passion for teaching. Growing up in Eritrea, he spent the majority of his time at church and learned the critical skills necessary for teaching students from the religious leaders in his community. He spent three years working at a church before leaving Eritrea for Kenya as a refugee. After resettling in the United States in 2010, Fisihazen became an active member of the city’s Eritrean Orthodox church community where he first began to notice a great need for Tigrinya language instruction. The children and youth were much more comfortable communicating in English rather than their mother tongue, which created visible linguistic barriers between them and the older generation.

After earning his bachelor's degree in business management, he decided to start a Tigrinya language program to teach the diaspora the skills necessary to preserve the language and culture outside of Eritrea. The course initially started extremely small, with only 3 students, but has grown substantially over the last couple of years to over 50 students across several cities and states in not only the United States as well as other countries abroad like Canada and the United Kingdom. Fisihazen’s language course is unique because of the way it is tailored to the needs of each student and offers personalized instruction based on an analysis of each students’ initial reading and writing abilities in the language.

He is passionate about teaching but more importantly, building a strong diasporic community that is unified in its love and appreciation of the culture and language. Like the Israelites who the Bible tells us were forced out of their homes and spread out across the world but still maintained a connection to their culture, practices and language, Fisihazen hopes that the lessons he offers to those in the diaspora will help them maintain a connection to their heritage.