Ashenda is a festival of womanhood, sisterhood, and female joy, celebrated every August in Tigray, It brings together physical adornment, music, and dance to honour the feminine form, where female participants are gifted food, drinks, and money by the rest of the community. Although it has its origins in religion by commemorating the ascension of the Virgin Mary, it has long since been a space for gendered freedom and rejection of violence against women and girls.