The Proposal

Doing good business, doing good is taking form for us here in Ethiopia as the One Village Ethiopia project: it combines developing a hotel, a tour service, a school for poor young high-school drop outs that produces young entrepreneurs and our very own Digital Village – a community internet center that provides access, training and consulting to the surrounding community. Woldiya has tourist potential that is as yet largely undeveloped, yet with the tourist business worldwide predicted to peak and plateau in the next decade it is one of Woldiya's most sustainable ways of gaining income as well as emerging into the 21^st century internet economy.

My original plans for Woldiya involved a drilling business or NGO, because ½ of the countries 70 million or so inhabitants still don't have reliable access to fresh water, but in fact our expertise and "guidance" has ended up bringing us to support Woldiya's emergence as a modern town, still well rooted in their rich and diverse cultural traditions. Thus we have submitted a proposal to both the Town and Region received with resounding support (including the gift of land!)

This proposal is intended to support Woldiya's successful emergence into the 21^st century internet economy. We will be working with local communities to who will welcome and host our tourists on their hiking trips up or across mountains, or trekking across highland plateaus to the breath-taking vistas that await them at cliff's edge. We have forests with monkeys, baboons, gorillas and tigers, lakes with hippopotami, camels all over the place in the lowlands, donkeys in the highlands, most of this within a few hours drive from Woldiya depending on which direction you head out. These communities will welcome our tourists as members of their families, all of us being One Village, giving themselves and the tourists a lovely sense of belonging as they share their food and cultural dances, songs and crafts with their guests. At the same time we will be connecting many sectors of the Woldiya region with the internet, giving them lessons in English, computer skills, and entrepreneurship so that they can with our support build Woldiya's new relationship to the world.

We have one more week here, a week that will be spent setting up the new Ethiopian company that will develop this hotel and touring business, that will host these charities. But tonight, we are off to have some fun, as it is Greg's birthday and so we will be having a good time with our Ethiopian friends, as only they can have fun!! J