While we’ve covered some Blood Diamonds stories including from Sierra Leone, it’s nice to hear a different kind of story. This comes from Chris Anderson of the TED blog.

Yene Assegid had a bad boat trip to Sierra Leone after a conference. The boat ran out of gas and after being rescued, her bags were stolen by some teens. Not your run of the mill teens that you might run into in America. The kind of teens that are involved in drugs, ex-combatants, generally feared young men. She approached them and explained the importance of her work and got back most of the items. It was a nice story, as she put it at the end: “Often times Sierra Leone is only thought of as a war torn country with ‘not much hope’ for the war affected communities. But through this story, it was obvious that heart was still there. And that if we level with people, without judgement & prejudice, well people listen and in listen we can effectively communicate to bring change.”

You can read the full story at: A TED-bagful of inspiration from Sierra Leone.