Long-time Sasca board member Mohamed Egeh was presented with the award for trustee / committee member of the year at an awards ceremony this week.
Mohamed has served on the Somali Adult Social Care Agency committee since we formed in 2007 – as Trustee, Director, Company Secretary and Deputy Chairperson.
Before SASCA there was no community organisation run by and for all Somalis in Manchester and it took Mohamed and a group of forward-thinking leaders of smaller community groupings to come together to transcend the barriers between the different regions, tribes and clans in Somalia which had precipitated the Civil War of 1990 displacing so many Somalis across the world.
Mohamed comes from Somaliland in the North, previously controlled by Britain before independence and he arrived with a wealth of experience of government and English.
In Manchester he was instrumental in setting up support for all Somalis with disabilities, quickly seeing the need to unite to use their strengths in the face of common need.
He has lived with intense and increasing pain and severe mobility problems, but he has been indefatigable in his endeavours.