Fəqrən na Agälgəlot Mahbär (Love and Service Association): Hakim Wärqənäh and an Early Ethiopian NGO

Abstract

ABSTRACT:During the 1920s Hakim Wärqənäh founded the Fəqrənna Agälgəlot Mahbär (Love and Service Organization), which was one of the most important attempts by Ethiopian intellectuals and elite to grapple with the issue of slavery and the slave trade in Ethiopia. It may also have been Ethiopia's first international NGO (nongovernmental organization). After approval from the heir to the throne, it went on to found a school for freed slaves, the first in Ethiopia. It included in its membership most of Ethiopia's progressives in the pre-1935 era. It also became an important component in Ras Täfäri's modernization campaign and a way for progressives to organize and network through their regular meetings. Wärqənäh combined elements of two organizations of which he had been a member, the traditional Mahbär and the Masonic order. All new members had to agree to free all their slaves.