Naser Haghamed was born in Eritrea in the 1960s. Eritrea was under the occupation of Ethiopia at the time and during his primary school years, Naser was not allowed to speak in his mother-tongue at school. Shortly before he was due to start secondary school, his mother told him that they were leaving the country. His father had been accused of supporting the Eritrean liberation fighters who were fighting against the Ethiopian occupation, so the family had to leave quickly without alerting authorities. The family first sought refuge in Sudan, later leaving for Saudi Arabia. He went on to receive a scholarship to study in Libya but found life difficult there and returned to Saudi Arabia. Following a short stay in Egypt (at the time of Anwar Sadat’s assassination), he was sponsored by his uncle to move to the UK for his studies.
Naser’s uncle fell into financial difficulties while he was sponsoring and Naser found himself without a sponsor and sought asylum in the UK. After studying for A Levels, he was admitted to study computer science at the University of London. He worked in a bookshop alongside his studies to support himself. After his studies, Naser began working for a computer science company, where he worked his way to senior roles. It was during this job that he met Dr Hani Elbanna (founder of Islamic Relief), who would later hire him as an IT manager to work for Islamic Relief in Birmingham. In 1993, Naser moved to Birmingham and soon made an impression, branching out his work to other departments eventually managing the clothing recycling company.
After the 11th September attacks in 2001, the Islamic Relief office in Afghanistan was forced to leave, which had an impact operation in the region. Naser decided to enrol for an MBA at Aston University while continuing his work for Islamic Relief. In 2013, he became the CEO of Islamic Relief. Reviewing is development over the course of his career, Naser says, “When I came to London I learnt how to deal with computers, when I came to Islamic Relief I learnt how to deal with people.” Although he can recount many highlights across his career, he also faced many challenges, including discrimination due to the colour of his skin: “at the beginning, I found it difficult to rent a place in Birmingham … when you are African black skin … I remember that I saw a house and I really liked it and went to rent it. And the owner said it’s gone we cannot rent it to you. The next day, a friend of, he has white skin, he is Egyptian, and his wife is American. They gave him!”
