Amanda Lindhout is not an ordinary woman. In the last six months she has helped about 100,000 people in Somalia by supplying them with the crucial food they need to survive via her organization, The Global Enrichment Foundation.
Of course, Lindhout hasn’t done this all on her own. She has a team of people helping to make her vision a reality. But this was Lindhout’s vision and her mission and she’s making it happen.
Imagine if we all followed Lindhout’s lead. Imagine if every one of us helped another or even more. Imagine how much better our world would really be.
Lindhout is an inspiration and she really shows how powerful one person can be.
Through her travels as a journalist over the years, she garnered an enormous understanding of the consequences of war, famine, violence and oppression. Lindhout believes that educational and economic opportunities are key to helping those in Somalia carve out a brighter future.
She chooses to see the potential in people, having described Somalia as a country full of ‘beautiful and resilient’ people. It’s inspiring to hear her tell her story, which resonates with compassionate sincerity.
Following her release in late 2009 after being held captive in Somalia for 15 months while working as a freelance journalist in Africa she has been sharing about the power of forgiveness and how good can emerge from the darkest of circumstances.
She has repeatedly emphasized how she has no desire to turn her back on the country of Somalia either, but has established the Global Enrichment Foundation with the aim of bettering the lives of women in particular in the poverty-wracked nation.
Her return to the country has been fueled by the famine crisis which garnered world-wide attention last year. According to the Red Cross, a cycle of severe droughts has led to a humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa (which includes Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti, Ethiopia and Uganda).
It is estimated that nearly 11 million people have been affected, many fleeing their homes and are now left with limited access to food, clean water and shelter.
Lindhout had no hesitation to help after seeing the famine first-hand while in Somalia.
We can all take a page from her book. That doesn’t mean we have to fly to Somalia, but we can start out small by helping locally at the food bank, the soup kitchens or even with organizations like Big Brothers and Big Sisters. Every step is in the right direction and it will only better our community and in turn the world.
