MELC faculty member, Mehari Worku, hosted an event, called “the Horn of Africa @ UW,” on January 30th, 2025, at Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center.
The event was aimed at course spotlighting and a reception of book donations from the Open Hearts and Big Dreams Foundation (OHBD) to support Horn of Africa courses at MELC. UW Students, faculty and guests attended the event.
MELC Chair Stephanie Selover welcomed the students and guests to the event, and expressed MELC’s appreciation of the support from OHBD. Prof. Joel Walker, an affiliate professor at MELC, gave an introduction to the Horn of Africa Initiative at University of Washington and the rationale of intellectual enrichment through diversification and community service to the Horn of African communities in the Pacific Northwest.
Ellenore Angelidis, the president of OHBD, and her daughter Leyla, expressed their support to the Horn of Africa Initiative and shared information about their organization and presented OHBD’s donation, to be included into the MELC library collection. The book donation is composed of 53 story books written in Amharic and several other Horn of Africa languages.
Hibist Menelik, a current Amharic student in the MELC department, shared with the audience her positive experiences with the Amharic language classes she enrolled in and her hopes that courses on the Horn of Africa continue to be offered at UW.
Horn of African sambusas were served to all to spice up the event. This event was a great start to the many more events we will have in the future to promote scholarly endeavors on the Horn of Africa at UW.
The event wouldn’t have been possible without the collegial cooperation between the Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, Humanities Academic Services Center, and Samuel E. Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center. Special thanks to Giovanni.