Welcome to Lalibela Trust

A group of young children, mostly girls, standing outdoors on a dirt ground with a woman behind them. The children are wearing colorful clothing and smiling, with some holding their hands together or at their sides. The landscape in the background shows a dry, hilly area with sparse trees and a mountain in the distance.

The Lalibela Trust is dedicated to the preservation of Ethiopia’s cultural history and the well-being of its vibrant community.

Lalibela Trust is a UK registered charity (Number 1147147) which works to improve health, education, and drinking water through the construction of health posts, classrooms, and clean water projects in Amhara Region, Northern Ethiopia

During a tourist visit to Ethiopia, Dr Hugh Sharp, a British medical doctor, and his wife Catherine visited Lalibela, a small historic town in Northern Ethiopia.  
They were shocked at the poverty, especially in relation to the local hospital and they resolved to take action.  
They established Lalibela Trust as a charity and a major project for them was a stand-alone Maternity Unit in that Hospital. 

In 2010 they met and teamed up with Norman Coward and Carole Andrews, who had been building Health, Water, and School projects around Lalibela since 2002.   
Lalibela Trust has grown and developed to today’s range of programmes. 

Now many donors, large and small, contribute to our work and a good number have visited.

A woman holding a child sitting at a desk with a healthcare professional in a white coat in a modest office setting.

Health

Learn more
Three smiling children sitting at desks in a classroom with a yellow wall background.

Education

Learn more
A group of children and a woman are standing around a water pump in a rural area with green hills and grazing animals in the background.

Water

Learn more

Our Principles

Donate

  • We always respect the views of local governments and communities.  We have remained small and localised over 20 years, so our team now know the area and local leaders extremely well.  This is a huge advantage in garnering respect and local support and in minimising the corruption risk.

  • Our agreements for the construction of projects are all similar:

    • We first discuss priorities with the Woreda Departments of Health, Water, and Education. (A woreda is an administrative unit (similar to an English county) population 100,000 – 200,000, comprising around 20 kebeles).

    • In Health and Education, the Woreda must agree to provide and pay health workers and teachers – we will not proceed without this agreement.

    • Community participation – We visit the local project site with the Department representatives to meet local leaders and agree the labour they must provide free of charge. We then provide the cement, corrugated iron, pipes, etc., and one of our proven group of (local Ethiopian) builders who manage the community workforce.

    • On completion, we hand over the building to the community. They must form a committee to maintain it.

    • We make unannounced spot-checks to a proportion of the completed projects.

  • We produce a Progress Report on our projects, normally every 4 months.   It is included on our NEWS page HERE

Click any image to learn more about our impact.

Opening Ceremonies

The communities love an Opening Ceremony.
This enables government Heads in Health and Education to promote the use of the new facility and for us to thank the community for their manual labour.
We then hand the facility over to the community.

Donate
A collage of six photos depicting a large outdoor gathering in Ethiopia, including people protesting, attending a community event, and participating in a meeting, with some holding umbrellas, flags, and listening attentively.