Then the community established a new and a progressive way of life that they started practicing. The community created a good system by living and working collaboratively, sympathetically, peacefully and cheerfully. They treat each other as brothers and sisters. This idea was established for all the people in the world to use. This community was founded by Zumra Nuru who, at the age of two, starte
d to ask questions to people he thought would have the answers. No one was able to answer him. From the age of four he started talking about issues such as the equality of women, the rights of children, caring for the elderly, complete avoidance of bad speech and bad deeds. However, the surrounding society didn’t accept his ideas. There fore, Zumra, at age thirteen, moved from place to place searching people who might share his ideas. During that time he had no one to talk to, no food to eat, and no place to sleep. Hence he was forced to stay in the jungle circled by wild animals. Although he spent five years in these challenging conditions, he did not succeed in finding like-minded people. Meanwhile, he returned back to his family and participated in farming activities. He started to share his farm products with people who were unable to work due to old age or health problems in order to assist them. As well as sharing farm products with those in need, during the dry season, he continued to search for people who would share his ideas. After spending a number of years in this situation, he was able to find some people in Fogera Woreda, who were happy to listen to his ideas. As a result, he left his former community and went to stay with the people who wanted to listen to his ideas. When he explained his ideas to these people, he was completely accepted. Hence, he established the Awra Amba community in 1972. In the Awra Amba community there are two levels of memberships. One is the Awra Amba Community New Chapter for Behavior Building and Development Multi-purpose Association (Community Member) and the other one is the Awra Amba Community Farmers and Handicraft Multipurpose Cooperative (Cooperative Member). The community members live either in Awra Amba or in other places by putting the values, principles, rules and regulations of the community to practice and disseminating them to the areas in which they live. The cooperative members all live together and work communally, whether they are strong or weak in order to bring about holistic economic, love and peaceful developments. The Awra Amba community lives according to the five basic ideas of Zumra Nuru that they put into practice. These include the equality of women, respecting children’s rights, caring for those who are unable to work due to ageing or health problems, avoiding bad speech and bad deeds (doing things to others which you would want done to you and not to do to others what you dislike to be done to you), accepting all human beings as brothers and sisters regardless of their differences and living in solidarity with everyone. For simplicity of achieving its goals, the community is led by 13 different committees. Each committee has its own duties to carry out. Out of the 13 committees, the Development committee is the central committee which co-ordinates and supervises the activities of the other 12 sub committees. Once a week, all the members of the community participate in fundraising activities. The funds generated once a week from work and the entrance fee collected from the visitors make up a fund called ‘Lewegen Derash’. These funds are donated to people who are unable to work, for treatment of sick people who have no money, for providing educational materials for children and some times for people living outside of the community, who have serious problems. ‘Lewegen Derash’ also helps those who have no house due to lack of money, or whose house is destroyed due to certain circumstances. The purpose of ‘Lewegen Derash’ is reaching out to those who face severe problems and to provide them relief from that problem. Twice a month, the members of the Awra Amba community participate in a family discussion about peace. The discussion may be held by gathering either three to four nearby neighbors together, or it may take place in only a single family. The agendas for the discussions are including implementation of planned activities, the avoidance of bad speech and bad deeds, and etc. The community believes that peace will be created throughout the world if everyone participates in family discussions. The objective of the peace discussion is to use family discussion as a key tool to bring about peace and development throughout the world by discussing and solving problems at the family level. In the community marriage can be entered at the age of 19 or above for females and 20 or above for males by the full consent of both sexes. There is no wedding ceremony to mark the marriage. The couple continues their usual work activities. There fore, in the community no time and economy is wasted. Before marriage the female and the male should abstain from having sexual relations. After marriage the husband shouldn’t have any other sexual partner except his wife and the wife shouldn’t have any other sexual partner except her husband. The Awra Amba community believes in the existence of one creator that created the sky and the earth, night and day, female and male, air, sun and all the creatures that exist on earth. Their belief is conveyed by good deeds. Therefore the members of the community live by doing good deeds for others and avoiding bad deeds done on others. The community practices the golden rule: Do unto others as you would do unto yourself. In the community every person shares the grief or the happiness of any other individual. The community tries to fulfill the needs of a person in his life time as much as possible. If someone is ill, the community tries to find ways to make him/her heal from his/her illness. But if all has been done to heal the ill person, and if they don’t have any possibility of healing him/her and the person dies, people may burst in to tears. But there is no extreme mourning since it brings additional harm. While enough members of the community perform the burial process; the remaining will stay with the family of the deceased to help them forget their grief. After the burial ceremony has been completed, the family of the deceased will go together with other people to their regular work place. This is done to make them forget their grief. At this time, the mourning ceremony ends.
