![]() The Washington area has more African immigrants than any other region in the U.S., with many of the immigrants lured by jobs at the World Bank or other development agencies. was shown to earn a median income of $42,000 and number around 881,000 - although the Yellow Pages publishers assert that the number is closer to 1.8 million. In the 2000 Census, the African emigre population in the U.S. They don’t ignore the problems - statistics on AIDS in Africa fill the book, for example - but the entrepreneurs also cite a surge in development on the continent, especially in Ethiopia (where all four partners were born), the boom in the Nigerian Stock Exchange, tourism in Mozambique and the deep pockets of African immigrants. They want the Yellow Pages to promote African unity and help Americans get beyond images of Africa as impoverished, war-torn and famine-ridden. If they can demonstrate that members of the community favor the businesses, they may have a reasonable proposition.”īeyond the book, Alemayehou and her partners have lofty goals. “Small businesses tend to think, ‘If I am going to spend a dollar, I want to get 5, 10, 20 in return. “When you get into smaller and smaller niches, the prospect gets more daunting,” said Charles Laughlin, an analyst with the Princeton, N.J.-based Kelsey Group, which tracks the phone book and directory industry. serving as their lone corporate sponsor, the partners estimate the first book generated $250,000 in revenue. ![]() With full-page ads costing about $3,000 and DaimlerChrysler Corp. A family arrives in America and they want to know where to get their spices, where to take an English as a Second Language class.” “Why reinvent the wheel when we can just learn from them? There’s definitely a need for Yellow Pages dedicated to specific immigrant communities. “We looked at them,” said Alemayehou, who also works as an international consultant for organizations doing development work in Africa. Managing partner Mimi Alemayehou said the competing books were a source of inspiration as she worked on the African version. The office down the hall houses the Indian Yellow Pages and members of that staff helped the Africans put their book together. On the fifth-floor offices of the African Yellow Pages, many of these phone books sit stacked high on a desk. Business directories targeting Korean, Arab, Indian and Chinese immigrants also serve the region. Vega Hispanic Yellow Pages, which was distributed in the Washington area for decades, was sold last year for $4 million to Hispanic Yellow Pages Network LLC, a growing Tampa, Fla., chain trying to acquire Latino directories nationwide. On doorsteps, in supermarkets and at trade fairs, ethnic business directories are piling up one heavy book after another. And by that logic, Woubshet suggests he should be talking to most businesses in Northern Virginia, which has been redefined and transformed by immigration. Woubshet said that as long as a company wants to do business with Africa or its emigres in the U.S., he can talk them into buying advertising space in the book. ![]() from multinationals to small mom-and-pop shops.” “We’re targeting the market for any business owner. “The best gynecologist may not be an African,” said Ahadu Woubshet, a managing partner. They promise that it will be bigger, better and, in some ways, less African. Now, from their office in Falls Church, the team behind the African Yellow Pages is preparing to publish a second edition this summer. Intended to help African immigrants, from the newly arrived to the firmly established, the 456-page publication offers bus schedules, information on individual countries and their embassies, travel resources, listings of schools, churches, mosques and hospitals, and a business directory that runs from African stores to video services. Last year, Sintayhu and three friends published what they believe is the first African Yellow Pages in the United States. Flipping through entrepreneur Tesfu Sintayhu’s Yellow Pages yields some expected results: dentists who will whiten teeth, contractors who install granite countertops and lawyers promising divorces in three weeks or less.īut Sintayhu’s pages also contain the name of the capital of Swaziland, the country code for calling Kenya, deejays who can remix Ethiopian music and answers to questions on the U.S.
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