Helping the Hamar people

We were having breakfast in the restaurant when Lori Sweningson heard us, knew we were Americans and came over to talk with us. Lori is from Seattle. She works with Global Team for Local Initiatives (GTLI), a group which works in various parts of the world, helping indigenous people who are facing increasing problems and even extinction. Lori has been working in the south of Ethiopia with the Hamar people, a tribe as yet little affected by the modern world. In this part of the country, there has been drought for many, many years and the people suffer from poor crops, insufficient food and water, and even from basic problems such as sanitation. GTLI is working with the Hamar to solve some of these problems and a major aspect of their help is training local people to take leadership in various ways in their communities. We had a good talk with Lori and it made us more aware of a part of the country and of problems that we had not seen. If you want more information about GTLI and its work, go to info@gtli.us or www.gtli.us.