Teaching self-sufficiency to nomadic peoples in northeastern Ethiopia.

Local Partner: YETEEM Children's & Destitute Mother's Program
Local Partner Director: Yimer Mohammed, Founder/Executive Director
Area Served:  Afar Nomadic peoples, Afar Region of Northeastern Ethiopia
Program Goal: To provide nomadic peoples in the Afar Region the training, supplies and support necessary to achieve food security and food self-sufficiency. Provide vocational training to empower women in the Afar Region to earn an income.
Program Services Provided: Food security and food self-sufficiency, water collection and management, computer, sewing and embroidery skills training.
Number of Program Beneficiaries: Over 1,000 individuals
Current Needs: Funding for clean water in the Afar villages served by the agriculture self-sufficiency programs, funding for a vocational training center.

Program Summary:
The Afar Region program works with families who have lived as pastoral nomads for thousands of years. These families raise and herd cattle and live almost completely off of the milk of their cows. Due to cyclical drought in the region, a lack of food and water for the cattle means less milk for the families. YETEEM recognized that the families needed to learn agricultural skills if they were to have a continual food source and to survive.

Change is difficult and takes time, patience and determination in working to introduce new ways of thinking and living to people. It was tough creating a strategy that helped prepare the Afar people to live in the twenty-first century without completely disrupting local traditions.   

The first agricultural program began in 1999 and consisted of 68 acres of land. The program introduced 120 semi-nomadic families to the idea of traditional plough culture and the use of draught and pack animals for improved crop production. In the true spirit of sustainable development, in June 2004 YETEEM handed over the development farm cooperative to the community. A community council of clan and religious leaders continues to oversee the program, while YETEEM continues to lend support when necessary.

YETEEM now works with four Afar communities on similar agricultural programs reaching out to over eight hundred families.

Vocational training program activities include skills training for 360 Afar women in computer skills, sewing and embroidery.