Tamirat was a much loved member of our team in Save teh Children Denmark. He was genuinely interested and curious about people and places and had a kind presence and warm humour that put people around him at ease. His professional accomplishments were based on both technical experience and expertise, as well as his unique ability to create a positive, mutual, respectful and warm connection with other people.
Tamirat had over 26 years of experience in humanitarian responses with a particular focus on child protection. Tamirat was known across Save the Children given his expertise in child protection and the role he played in so many countries. This included hands on child protection work in a range natural and manmade humanitarian contexts, including the tsunami in India, and crises in South Sudan, Syria, Sierra Leone, Darfur, Afghanistan and Somalia. Tamirat understood, as well as any, that much of the work we do in Child Protection is changing human perception and behaviour, and that people only change with positive motivation to do so. Full of passion, Tamirat was brilliant at motivating others to make the journey to change.
After working with Oxfam and USAID, Tamirat first joined Save the Children in 2006 starting in Zimbabwe implementing programs aimed at preventing sexual abuse and gender-based violence but also family tracing and reunification and psychosocial support. Tamirat joined Save the Children Denmark in 2015 and has since that time been a critical part of our Child Protection team. He was a natural talent when it came to training and was instrumental in leading and supporting SCD’s child and youth resilience programme in more than 10 countries in 2018 alone. Tamirat was excited by SCD’s growing focus on MHPSS and had taken it upon himself to build his expertise in this area.
Tamirat had the grace to never put himself first or highlight his own achievements, but was full of acknowledgement and appreciation for his colleagues and friends. Tamirat never hardened or became cynical due to the work, but stayed open and empathetic with a strong sense of social justice. He had the highest possible ethical standards, and was not willing to compromise on these despite his flexibility in all other aspects of his work. A person of great autonomy and ability, he could navigate in complex settings and sometimes complicated working environments. He demonstrated integrity and solidarity daily in his work and in all interactions with his team, and most importantly with the people he was committed to serve.
We were lucky to have Tamirat with us in Copenhagen last week. At a small dinner with a few of his colleagues he told of how he was “born under a coffee tree” on his grandmother’s plantation and about the passion for this work with children that steered the course of his life. At 48, Tamirat was taken from his family, friends and colleagues too soon. Our thoughts and prayers goes out to them whose lives were blessed by having known him. An inspiration for us all, he will be dearly missed.