Tangible Hope
Lily Yoseph lives in Sausalito, a beautiful well-to-do city in California now, but she was born and raised in in the rural village of Kofele, Ethiopia. After 25 years away from home, exploring a number of careers, including modeling and real estate, and living on three different continents, she settled in Marin County, California. After a near-death experience, she returned to her homeland of Ethiopia. There she was reminded of the conditions of extreme poverty and made the decision to start by helping one girl and her family, raising money to support the girl’s education. Fast forward to today, and Tangible Hope, the non-profit Yoseph founded in 2010, sponsors seventy-five girls in Ethiopia — providing yearly school fees and supplies, monthly health care checkups, healthy meals, and also grain and cooking oil for their families. Her model is unique in that it supports the girls’ education as well their families’ nutritional needs. Traditionally fathers do not encourage their daughters to attend school, but because the program supports the whole family, they are more likely to allow their daughters to receive an education.
Recently the Dali Lama gave Yoseph a humanitarian award. She is a special human who, although she had become very comfortable in California, found a deeper meaning by supporting young girls in her homeland.
