Celebrating an Oromo Community Leader

In early 2026, the Oromo community of Seattle lost a charismatic community leader with the passing of Obbo Mama Argo.

Mama Argo was one of EthnoMed’s generous and impactful early collaborators and served as Community Advisor helping get the HMC Community House Calls program off the ground. He contributed to many published educational resources, including the Oromo Cultural Profile and Oromo Immigrants and Breast Feeding Information. As a former nurse leader in Ethiopia and a leader in the local Oromo community Mama Argo held outstanding knowledge of the community’s history and culture and the community’s practices and healthcare believe and experiences. The lessons learned by those who were lucky to hear from Mama Argo were countless, interesting, and beneficial to all on both personal and professional levels. Clinicians recall learning pertinent cultural information on topics including governing systems in the Oromo culture, about smallpox inoculation in Africa long before the vaccine was developed, about Oromo healers’ ability to treat fractures in ways that resulted in more rapid healing, and more. Mama Argo provided our teams with invaluable input and advice around how to talk about different health conditions within the Ethiopian communities served by our healthcare providers. He truly was a pillar within the Oromo community and a staunch advocate for the greater African diaspora in Seattle as well.

Mama Argo’s presence will be greatly missed here in King County and beyond. May his legacy of community engagement and advocacy be an inspiration for all, and may we continue to carry forward the values he lived by.

We simply cannot do our work without the expertise, input and time from community members. We need to work closely with cultural experts who can share their expertise and help connect us to other community members, so that we can ensure that the resources we develop are actually accurate, representative, and useful.