(Written by Pamela) Elfneh and I met some years ago (perhaps as far back as 2004) at an annual London event AD3 - Africa Diaspora Development Day. We followed up some time later by email, phone and face to face.
Elfneh is founder of Ahead "Action for Health, Education and Development, a UK registered charity serving his homeland - Ethiopia. Like my friend the late Peter Adetuji Oyawale, Elfneh was born in rural Africa and expected to continue in the life of his forefathers. In Elfneh's case this life was cattle-herding. However he was deterimed to get an education, and managed to persuade his parents to allow this. When Elfneh and I first got to know each other well he was finishing his higher degree at London Institute of Education, and his passion (as Peter's had been) was to help his people back home.
It was through Elfneh that I connected with Tim Neumann at London University's Institute of Education - Elfneh and I attended a series of lunch time Technology Tasters that Tim was organising. Subsequently we were able to have a three way online linkup between Ahead, London University and Dadamac (in Nigeria).
We continue to keep in contact and hope to do collaborative work as resources allow.