Book local expertise
Work with licensed local guides and book directly where practical. Guides explain the architecture and help visitors move through active places of worship with care.
Meet a local guideImpact and accountability
Support Lalibela responsibly
Keep value local, choose accountable organizations, and let people in Lalibela set the priorities.
Where to begin
Your visit can support local work directly.
Hire local expertise, stay in locally owned accommodation, buy directly from artisans, eat in independent restaurants, and give yourself time in town. These choices keep more visitor spending in Lalibela and make the relationship easier to understand.
If you want to donate, use an established organization with public programs, clear governance, and regular reporting. An appeal should be able to explain who chose the priority, how funds move, and how progress will be documented.
Four practical choices
Let local knowledge lead.
Spend in town
Choose locally owned rooms, restaurants, transport, and workshops. Ask before photographing people, and pay a fair price without making every exchange a negotiation.
Plan your visitCheck the organization
Look for registered status, published programs, local participation, and recent reporting. Our Peter Bachmann Foundation profile shows how readers can follow claims back to an organization’s own sources.
Review the foundation profileSupport living heritage
Conservation includes the clergy, craftspeople, residents, and traditions that give the churches meaning. Strong projects connect preservation with local knowledge, skills, and livelihoods.
Read about conservation
The wider picture
The churches and the town share a future.
Conservation decisions affect worship, movement, work, housing, and tourism. Economic changes affect guides, artisans, hotels, restaurants, drivers, clergy, and families across Lalibela.
Protecting the sacred landscape therefore involves architecture, religious practice, local skills, viable livelihoods, and residents directly involved in development decisions.
Connected priorities
Architecture, worship, livelihoods, and planning.
Conserve the architecture
Water, erosion, seismic activity, and human use place long-term pressure on the churches. Ethiopian heritage authorities, church custodians, UNESCO, and research teams continue to study protection and restoration.
UNESCO property recordProtect religious practice
Worship, pilgrimage, festivals, sacred objects, music, language, and custodial knowledge carry Lalibela’s religious meaning. Visitor management must recognize that the churches remain in use.
Understand the sacred landscapeKeep value local
Tourism supports a wide network of work. Local guides, rooms, restaurants, transport, and crafts distribute visitor spending more directly across the town.
Build a thoughtful stayPlan together
Conservation projects can combine technical research with local training, heritage management, tourism planning, and community participation. The decision-making structure matters as much as the physical work.
Read about current workBefore you support a project
Five questions an initiative should answer.
A good campaign name is not evidence. Ask for enough detail to understand who holds authority and what happens after money is given.
- 01
Local leadership
Who sets priorities, approves spending, and can change the plan?
- 02
A specific purpose
What will the project do, for whom, and over what period?
- 03
A visible funding route
How is money received, controlled, spent, and recorded?
- 04
Safeguards
How are children, personal data, consent, and unequal power handled?
- 05
Public reporting
What evidence of progress, difficulty, and spending will be shared?
Children and giving
Support school needs directly.
If a child asks for help, avoid handing out cash. If you want to respond in the moment, buy useful school items such as notebooks, pens, dictionaries, or a backpack. Ask what is actually needed.
Even better, donate supplies or funds directly to a school. A teacher or school leader can identify priorities and distribute the support where it is most useful.
Read Antonin’s field noteA simple standard