Gashaw was born and raised in Gondar, Ethiopia. Political conflict led him to flee to Kenya from Ethiopia in August 2003. He spent 4 years in Nairobi and then moved to Kakuma Refugee Camp in 2007, where he would spend another 12 years. He described life at Kakuma Refugee camp to be difficult with poor living conditions where finding a job was hard and corruption was widespread. Gashaw estimates that at the time there were over 100,000 refugees. Many people fell sick at camp and with poor access to healthcare, many died as Malaria spread rapidly. Gashaw also fell sick with Malaria and talks of the hard recovery without access to healthcare or much support.