Building GREHAYA against odds

By Eshete Tesfaye and Asamnew Debay, Ethiopia

Greater Horn of Africa Youth in Action is a nonprofit and non political organization established by young people representing countries of Ethiopa, Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan.

Initially, the aim was to establish GREHAYA as a regional organization in the Horn of Africa. However, efforts faced a challenge due to policies and bureaucracies of the countries in the region.

As a result the goal of registering GREHAYA as a regional organization or chapter organization of Crossing Borders, which is based in Denmark, has not been meet.

Consequently, GREHAYA lacks a regional office and permanent staff working on issues of peace and security. What has been achived so far is that GREHAYA is registered as a local NGO in Somalia.

The other major challenge is that of finding funds to implement projects according to the action plans of the participants from the respective countries. Participants can only manage to contribute their own skills and efforts, which will enable them to carry out only limited acivites. Contributions from members only will not enable GREHAYA to achieve it’s goals.

Another challenge is that members of GREHAYA are geograpicaly dispersed which creates a major barrier for communication. Together with the absence of permanent office and staff, that can coordinate the activities in the countries of the horn, this is a great hurdle to achive the goals of GREHAYA.

To conclude, the problems of getting registered GREHAYA as a regional organization, shortage of funding, and the lack of strong communication are major challenges that have to be addressed before GREHAYA could be able to function effectively and contribute meaningfuly for the regin of peace and security in the Horn of Africa.

We would like to move forward. Do you have knowledge or contacts that can help us, please comment.