2021 Projects
Community Development Projects
This year FOL was able to award grants to four community organizations in Lesotho that focus on community development and empowerment at the grassroots level.
Malaleng Community Based Organisation
The project is intending to establish 500 layer chickens project for a period of 1 year to raise funds in order to meet the undermentioned objective. This layer chicken project has been selected because there is a high demand of chicken products in Lesotho and the market is wide open due to limited supply from South Africa. The project will promote local production and reduce dependency from other countries.
The project will focus to the female headed families who were retrenched from their work at the Lesotho textiles industries from the previous year and this year respectively (2020/2021). There are almost 7 large locations composed of more than 12,000, and not less than 9,000 women working at the textiles industries of Thetsane industrial area. These women are facing hunger and starvation due to related outcomes, direct and indirect results of COVID-19. This suffering affects their children’s education. There are more than 6,000 women retrenched from their work from 3 factories and their children are facing great difficulty to attend school. This project is intending to raise 500 layer chickens to raise funds in order to help in education of their children. The project staff will visit pre-schools and daycare centers to identify and select those who re-ally need assistance.
Ha Sekantsi Community Learning Center
FOL contributed funds for the construction of a community learning centre that will contribute towards ensuring the access to quality education from early ages and responsive occupational skills training for econo-mic and socio-economic growth of the community of Ha Sekantsi and Lesotho. The funding will also bring together partners such as Rural Self-Help Development Association (RSDA) and Lesotho Distance Teaching Centre as key stakeholders.
The learning center will include a preschool and junior primary school for children, as well as a formal and vocational school for herders and adults who have dropped out of school and had no opportunity for readmission, or those who have never had an opportunity to receive basic education. The learning center will also be used as health outreach center since the nearest clinic is six hours walk from the community or two hours by road.
Based on progress made on this project, FOL is following up last year’s initial support with an additional contribution.
Thaba-Tseka Farmer’s Co-operative (TTFCS)
All eggs that are sold in the district of Thaba-Tseka are currently imported from the lowlands and/or South Africa. The TTFCS wants to produce eggs to bring the entire process into the district. By commercially producing eggs within the district, the co-op will be capable of providing a more affordable end product to the individuals and shops within Thaba-Tseka and create a secure source of income for the members of the co-op.
Mohloli Youth Empowerment and Development (MoYED)
The organization explains its project goals as follows: MoYED will be working closely with youths in Lesotho to improve and promote their social standing and skills development, and in providing trainings directly benefitting these youth. We serve these youth because we believe they are surviving on meagre resources and constantly seeking out a purpose for their lives. They have never been nurtured and reared in a way to develop them to be responsible and productive generation, because of which the petty crimes, unemployment, poverty HIV and AIDS infection in the community are constantly on rise.
The aim is to reach almost all the youth generation in the target area and raise awareness about their collective active roles in civil society. We will focus our efforts primarily on:
How best to provide youngsters who fail to finish school and help those who dropped out get back on track
Helping those who are held in Juvenile Training Centre to live a productive and responsible life once they have been released.
Empowering and developing disadvantaged youth, offer them training and skills enhancement so that they can bring change to their families and communities through social and economic engagement
Touching Tiny Lives Foundation
Touching Tiny Lives (TTL) is an organization in Mokhotlong that supports children under the age of five who are dealing with HIV and/or malnutrition issues. One of the main ways TTL offers support is by providing monthly food deliveries to families throughout Mokhotlong and in parts of Thaba Tseka. TTL describes its acute needs as follows:
“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen increases in malnutrition throughout our district. We are meeting this increasing demand for food assistance in our community, but we are also trying to expand on other ways to assist those in dire need. COVID-19 has caused many Basotho to lose their jobs, making purchasing essential supplies for the pandemic difficult.
For US$ 10, we can supply a family a month worth of hygiene necessities (laundry soap, body soap, and Vaseline) during the pandemic. For US$ 2,000, we can supply 200 families with hygiene necessities in addition to our food packages.
TTL’s other efforts work to provide children under the age of five with Vitamin A and de-wormer medications. We want to increase the frequency and range of distributing these crucial vitamins not only to help more in addressing malnutrition issues, but also to save families trips from taking their children to clinics, hospitals, or other crowded places during the pandemic.
Thankfully, we have already received a donation of Vitamin A and Albendazole from Vitamin Angels and are just in need of funds to fuel our trucks to be able to make these additional visits. US$ 50 is the cost of a full tank of gas; that is what it typically costs for us to visit a rural village and come back. US$ 500 would allow us to make 10 additional trips to distribute these vitamins to rural communities. US$ 2,500 would allow our organization to significantly expand our reach and assistance to Basotho in need over the next several months.”
A donation from FOL allows TTL to continue some of these outreach activities.
Morija Museum and Archives
The Morija Museum and Archives plays a vital role in the maintenance of Basotho history and culture. The Archive is one of the premier collections in Lesotho, containing many documents that cannot be found anywhere else. The Center has put on a number of festivals over the years that celebrate Basotho music and praise poetry. Due to COVID, book sales at the Museum and Archives have virtually dried up.
In response to a special appeal to help make up for lost revenue that resulted from COVID, FOL made a donation to the Muse-um and Archive to help support the centre through difficult financial times and make sure that the valuable work there continues.
Other Projects
Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), supporting 60 students
We have been fortunate to continue to help children in Lesotho through the TAP program that provides scholar-ships for Basotho students to attend High School.
The evacuations of Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs) in March 2020 because of the pandemic presented our or-ganization with a unique challenge to facilitate the TAP grants. In the past PCVs were instrumental in nominating suitable scholarship candidates, as many of volunteers were directly working with schools and in the villages. This time around, it was the Rotary Clubs of Maseru, Ma-loti Club, and the Maseru-Mantsopa Clubs who reached out to principals across Lesotho and helped identify 60 students for the scholarships.
COVID Relief
In response to the continuing economic consequences for many Basotho family, FOL sent two additional rounds of support to purchase food and other basics. We worked with 6 partners in Lesotho and reached over 400 families.