The laughter of ambitious Ethiopian women diaspora from the Middle East echoes through the halls of the fourth floor of the Helen Building around the Lideta area. The beaming faces of 203 women who take hairdressing, makeup and textile production courses are glints from a band rising from the ashes of scorching desert careers.

A collective of Ethiopian women from Lebanon branded "Egna Legna Besidet" offers a safe space and a sisterhood to women who are survivors of labour, sexual and financial abuses.

The organisation, which roughly translates to "support amongst ourselves", offers all the courses free of charge and gives stipends for those too impoverished to pay for the commute.

Rahel Kassahun, a proud mother to a daughter, is one of the women who has found support at the foundation. She foresees self-employment upon finishing her course. She had spent 11 years in Lebanon before the country was shaken by an explosion at an ammonium nitrate warehouse in 2020 that sounded the final alarm on an economic freefall that is still happening.

She says that the US dollar became a prized possession that employers did not want to dispose of. She recollects losing a friend to suicide during her final months in the country, which was a breaking point.

"I was devastated," she told Fortune.

According to Rahel, the only good thing that came from her stay was the education her daughter received; now studying accounting. Egna Legna provided Rahel with assistance that covered her flight, medical expenses, and accommodations during her departure.

Her story is shared by 800 other women who were bolstered up by the organisation as they made their way out of the country on a sharp fall.

Egna Legna represents the re-emergence of hope for many of these women traumatised by years of labour with little to show for it. While the foundation used to pay for classes at other skills training centres, it has received certifications this year to offer courses on its own.

Sara Markos, the deputy administrator at the foundation in Ethiopia said the most traumatised returnees get offered counselling services before they begin taking classes.

She has observed that some women who did not have a place to socialise and learn new skills slip into depression. Although they want to accommodate more women, Sara stressed that financial constraints force them to strict quotas on the number of students.

"More support from the government would go a long way," she told Fortune.

Egna Legna Besidet was founded six years ago by Banchi Yemer, a former housemaid in Lebanon who had enough of seeing her fellow citizens subject to sexual assault, exploitation, physical abuse and humiliation.

Banchi said hunger, physical isolation, sexual abuse, withheld wages and subhuman treatment are in the cards for women who seek employment as housemaids in the Middle East.

She recalls escaping after being given off as a gift to the in-laws of her employer's son witnessed several horrific stories and recalls unfortunate incidents where women have jumped from the very balcony she sleeps on.

"I worked on several posts for seven years before launching the organisation," she said.

Upon hearing horror stories of abuse from fellow Ethiopians at a community centre, Banchi coughed up the five dollars in her pocket, banded with five other women and started distributing food to stranded Ethiopian women living in the country.

"We chipped in whatever we could to help our sisters," she reflects on the initial three-year period before a fortuitous GoFundMe campaign that corralled 300,000 dollars from all around the world.

Following support from international organisations such as the International Labour Organisation (ILO), Amnesty International and Global Fund For Women, Egna Legna now provides medical and legal assistance, skills training mentorship and food assistance to thousands of women through its centres based in Lebanon and Ethiopia.

An ILO study from 2017 shows that most Ethiopian migrant workers in Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman) are engaged in forced labour, confiscation of passports, maltreatment and withheld salary payment. Over a million Ethiopians are estimated to be living in the Middle East with a significant portion being illegal migrants.

The situation is exacerbated for women who are part of the Kafala sponsorship system, a custodial framework that administers employment modalities for migrant workers in the Gulf countries where a staggering 100pc in Oman, 81.8pc in Lebanon and 75.5pc in Kuwait are employed as housemaids.

The saga continues as a Human Rights Watch report released last week indicates the death of hundreds of Ethiopian migrants by Saudi Arabian forces while they made their way across the Sadaa region in Northern Yemen between March 2022 and June 2023.

Another report in July by the Mixed Migration Center, an independent data institution within the Danish Refugee Council, stated that Ethiopians were being “systematically” killed by “security officials operating under Saudi Arabian state authority”.

Banchi recognised the importance of establishing an accommodative environment when the women returned to Ethiopia and began the school as a safe space to hone skills and come together.

"It's heartbreaking to learn that some have gone back due to economic obstacles," she reasoned on the necessity of the training centre kicked off this year.

She fervently cautions young Ethiopian women from migrating to the Middle East until the Kafala system is abolished and migrant housemaids are included within the mandate of the respective country's Labor Ministry.