Abstract:
Azmari has been a long presented tradition throughout the history of Ethiopia. However, little
attention has been given about their lived experiences though their poems are widely circulated
in the society. To fill this gap, this study is attempted to uncover the lived experiences of female
Azamris (buskers) in Bahir dar City Administration. To meet the objective of the study,
qualitative approach with phenomenology design was employed. The data was extracted from 10
purposively selected participants through in-depth interview data collection tool. The data was
analyzed via thematic analysis technique. The study result indicated that women Azmaries have
enjoyed varieties opportunities which include salary, reward/gift, access to visit other place
within or outside Ethiopia, access to meet influential people and music producers, getting social
respect and access to release music album. The result also shows that female Azmaris have
confronted different saddles. The main challenge is associated with the current political
instability and COVID-19 pandemic. Due to such incidents, the income of the female Azmaris
has sharply been decreased. Apart from economic problem, female Azmari are exposed for
various health problems that arise due to night work and continues vocal performance. Physical
pain and throat infections are common health problems for the Azmaris. The female Azmaris
have also faced various gender based violence. To cope with all these challenges, they have used
various mechanisms which include being patient, praying, developing resilience behavior,
establishing marriage life and being transparent to convince others. It can be concluded that
female Azmaris’ life can be seen from two polarized perspectives— on the one hand they get
advantages and on the other hand they face various challenges. It is, therefore, suggested that
various governmental organizations like labor and social affairs office, saving and credit
institutions, women focused organizations particularly women youth and child affairs office,
women federation , women league and also non-governmental organizations should have to
support them to mitigate the problems of the Azmaris whereby they able to improve the life of
female Azma