PENHA launched its 30th anniversary celebration last Thursday 28th November 2019 at an event held at Adulis Restaurant in London. The main objective of the event was to celebrate PENHA’s 30-year journey, its resilience, determination and achievements towards supporting pastoral and agro-pastoral communities in the Horn of Africa and diaspora communities in the UK. Over the last 30 years, PENHA has worked across various scales and policy spaces, supporting pastoral communities in advocacy, programme and project delivery and carrying out research to generate evidence-based policy documents. PENHA’s achievements vary from its advocating role to ensure inclusion of an article in the Ethiopian constitution during the 1990s that protects pastoral livelihood systems to playing a lead role in promoting pastoral livelihood and environmental systems.
The event was attended by the founding director, Dr. Zeremariam Fre, current and previous trustees, staff members, associates, longstanding friends and supporters, and their partners. Many of the attendees expressed their appreciation of how PENHA has been able to survive against all odds and thrive as a charity since its inception in 1989. Dr. Tekeste Gebray, Prof. Michael Walls, Kees Maxey, Dr. Vanessa Champion, Molemisi Kono, Dr. Fatomo Abdi Abdillahi, Rehab Jameel and others shared their experience of how they became involved with PENHA. The event was moderated by Bereket Tsegay and created a platform for networking and reaffirming participants’ commitment to supporting PENHA’s activities.
Prior to the anniversary celebration, PENHA launched its new strategy for 2020-25 at a meeting held on the same date with trustees, staff and associates.
