Greetings,

Today, it is not raining! I arrived back in Lesotho in the evening, in the dark and amid torrents of rain. The long dirt road into our centre from the paved main road was so saturated that the field was flooded. Ntate Motsamai’s ability to navigate the car was impressive! The rains this season are unrelenting, unprecedented and wreaking havoc – huts crumbling, bridges breached, gardens swamped and roads washed out. It has been raining most days and/or nights since I arrived. Most of the crops have benefitted from the rain and there is hope the harvest will be good. We hope the weather will improve for the visitors and events we have planned in the coming weeks.

I felt fully ‘at home’ once I heard the all-too-familiar sound of the sheep bells just outside the centre as I began working early one morning. Sheep are emblematic here. They graze on the sides of the roads as one passes, are tethered in the small yards of villagers, are the need for our Herd Boy Program, are integral to the traditional ceremonies of killing a sheep to mark a wedding, funeral, or rite of passage, and they provide protein for privileged families and the angora wool of which Lesotho is so proud.

This visit will be close to two months and atypical for me, as it is the last before I retire at the end of April. Next week, we are excited to welcome Help Lesotho’s new Executive Director, Julia Thompson, to Lesotho. Julia is as much looking forward to coming here and meeting our staff in person, as they are excited to meet her. Donors, staff and our board join me in feeling deeply grateful to have such an experienced, capable and compassionate person to lead Help Lesotho forward into this exciting new phase of the organization. Her weeks here will be filled with visits to programs, participation in staff and partner meetings, and keen listening to the beneficiaries as they share their stories. Julia will write a couple of these ‘Letters from Lesotho’ during her time here so that you can hear directly from her. I know you will look forward to reading of her impressions and stories of her experiences.

On March 3, we will welcome our donor trip guests for an adventurous couple of weeks, during which we will celebrate the opening of the new Pitseng Centre Library to which approximately 150 of you contributed! My eldest son Jesse will also visit Lesotho in March –a real treat for me. He will be here for the Pitseng event and stay for my retirement celebration before heading out on a daring bike trek in these incredibly challenging mountains. You can follow his training and journey on his Instagram page: Oopsmark.

It was wonderful to be so warmly welcomed by the staff – I love them all. Watching them grow in their professions and skills is a great joy. Our programs are in full swing and the centres are hopping with children, program participants, comings and goings. It was special that I arrived in time to participate in the quarterly all-staff meeting and listen to the plans for the next three months – so carefully constructed to incorporate any changes or lessons learned from our extensive program evaluations and feedback from participants.

First-day excitement for the 2023 Leaders-in-Training participants.

This past Friday was very special and indeed emotional. The entire staff, our wonderful Country Director, ‘M’e Mamoletsane, and I spent three hours celebrating together. Some staff and professional interns received their completion certificates for the intensive Psychosocial Support Course, others their CHANGE4ce Facilitation Certification and course certificates. Nine staff were honoured with their five-year plaques for faithful service, including Bo-‘M’e Tsoakae, Hlalefo, Shasha, and Malefu, and Ntate Thabo. As I gave each a long hug, many were shaking with emotion. Among those were our three security officers (Bo-Ntate Tokiso, Lefu, Motebang and Bereng) who, on shifts, protect and support our staff, and visitors, our centre, and our participants. I wondered if these dear men, fine examples of kind and caring males to all who comes into the centre, had ever been publicly acknowledged. (Later, one told me how proud his ten-year-old son was of him when he saw the plaque.) Two Senior Program Officers, ‘M’e Felleng, our Psychosocial Support Officer, and ‘M’e Thoala the Pitseng Centre Supervisor, received their 10-year recognition plaques. ‘M’e Mampaka received our first 15-year plaque. ‘M’e Mamoletsane and I told the stories of the amazing leadership, growth and contribution of each one over so many years. These long serving staff are the foundation and stability of our programs and are mentors who train, encourage and support the others.

At each juncture, representatives of various groups spoke about the learning, growth and accomplishments of which they are so deeply and rightfully proud. Standing in front of these amazing men and women, who have bravely embraced so much training I have thrust upon them, was inspiring. Our staff face human injustice and trauma every single day. They hold these stories in their hearts and feel the weight of the responsibility of so much trust on their shoulders. They live daily with the frustration and feelings of helplessness at not being able to address all the needs before them. I thought of the many hours of emotionally-laden, fruitful conversation in their discussion groups, the ways each supports the other in pairs and groups, and the passion they hold so dear for Help Lesotho, its impact and their growth as professionals. I admire them so much – and, in the end, I just couldn’t breathe!

‘M’e Malefu with her 5-year plaque.               

Ntate Thabo with his 5-year plaque.

Help Lesotho staff and professional interns proudly display their plaques and certificates!

With each day and each meeting, the stories pour out. One was about a mom, who left three little ones with a 12-year-old to go to South Africa to work and never came back. The children tried to cook for themselves and suffered significant burns. When they were brought to the attention of our staff, the latter made various efforts to support them, introduce them to the social development workers, provide emergency relief and even ensure the processes are followed to get the children birth certificates. With support from the Ministry of Home Affairs or other relevant ministry agents, we help herd boys, grannies and young mothers secure identity documents for themselves and their babies to literally ‘exist’ in the country, and which are essential for them to gain access to orphan or old age pensions, medical assistance, death certificates for inheritance or insurance.

Peg

– Read Letter #2 2023 – 
– Read Past Letters from Lesotho – 

Greetings,

I am so touched by the number and responses of readers to my first letter. Thank you for following along and for caring so much.

‘M’e Mamoletsane, Kathleen and I met with the World Health Organization, UNICEF, UNAIDS and UNFPA to discuss our CHANGE4ce Program to help build capacity in other organizations to provide better psychosocial support in building resilience and mental health. We are hopeful to move this initiative forward. We know that our training and experience in mental health would help so many organizations deepen the impact of their work.

One of our COVID initiatives was to mobilize our alumni to both keep them occupied with purpose and to provide support to children during the school closures. We developed and they distributed over 5,000 age-appropriate workbooks filled with COVID information, coping strategies, math and literacy activities, motivational pages and games. The alumni volunteers were trained and each supported a troop of children in their village – to listen, learn and comfort. It has been a great success. The guardians of the children have approached the alumni to learn how to better support the children under their care. Although thankfully the schools remained open for the 2022 school year, we continued the project with the volunteers supporting children after school and on weekends. COVID set so many children so far back both educationally and emotionally. The impact over the last year blew our expectations away. As you can see from the table below, a total of 108 volunteers reached 4,635 vulnerable children. On average, each of these children participated in 7 life-changing sessions.

“I have really improve on my self confidence because I can stand in front of many people and speak which was something that I wasn’t able to do before I start my outreach.” – Mafusi, volunteer

 

“Children are now seeing the light even those who are struggling they are trying.” – Chaka, volunteer

Another project we are conducting is in its third year in the south of Lesotho on early and unintended pregnancy. UNFPA begged us to help in an area in which over 50% of the high school girls had fallen pregnant. That is not a typo or over exaggeration – literally more than half of the girls in high school in this region became pregnant. My heart aches for these girls and their dear babies. We are working with the chiefs, local council and community members to hold them responsible for protecting these girls. We are working with potential enablers and perpetrators, including the landlords of the tiny rented rooms rural children must live in to attend high school, taxi drivers (part of the essential transportation sector), bar owners, herd boys and teachers. We are proud to say that there has been significant progress. The taxi drivers are determined to protect their student passengers, educate new drivers, and to work with the schools to ensure students can only access taxi rides if they have a pass to leave school. Similarly, the landlords have stepped up to monitor their premises against perpetrators and ensure only those who should be in the rooms are. The main high school has reported a remarkable decline in pregnancy and has made a commitment to work with other schools to reduce truancy so that the girls are not enticed away from their education by the promises of food, jobs and ‘treats’.

Kathleen visited a school and spent a day each with the young mothers and a couple of grannies.

Going to their village, Kathleen visited a granny who had prospered under our program and who was able to grow enough food to feed her family and understand positive parenting.

The other was a different story. Our program officer had rescued two children whose mother had abandoned them. Their grandmother agreed to raise them. When Kathleen arrived, the grandmother was totally bedridden. At 84, she was giving the little food she had to the children and literally starving herself to death – so weak that she could not get out of bed. The children now care for her. This visit still haunts Kathleen. Our staff will follow up.

I had charged our psychosocial professional interns with reading Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning” and had a great chat with them on it, followed by a serious and quite wonderful discussion with all the male staff on a module on ‘Supporting Boys and Men’.

On Friday, Lesotho’s new Prime Minister was inaugurated. He paid for his own inauguration and put himself out on a real limb by making 20 promises of accountability in the first 100 days. The population is hopeful.

This partnership between you and our amazing staff has brought about more change and reached more people than we could ever have imagined – close to 260,000 people. The need is enormous but so is our capacity and our determination. We are on it!

Peg

P.S.: Our 2023 Help Lesotho Calendars are now for sale. Filled with beautiful and inspiring images, grab one before the start of the new year!

P.P.S.: We have some fun video footage from our trip that I would like to share with you. Below you can watch videos of grannies singing and dancing (taken by Kathleen) as well as our staff singing to welcome Kathleen and me to Lesotho. We’re also including a delightful compilation of resilience fun-day activities with children at our Hlotse Centre. Enjoy!

Read 2022 Letter #6 from Lesotho
Read all previous 2022 Letters from Lesotho

On October 12, 2022, waiting hours to board for our 15-hour flight from New York to Johannesburg, I had such vivid flashbacks to my reverse journey 31 months ago – leaving Hlotse in the dark hours before dawn to get through the border before it closed, to the circuitous days and countries to return home, wary of the hordes of international travelers who might be carrying this nameless plague that had so suddenly descended upon the world.

Now – returning to Lesotho, still masked and COVID wary, the world is both altered and oddly the same. The pandemic brought our staff new capacities with devices and platforms allowing more effective and meaningful distance communication – upon which we have relied all these months. Compounded by climate change effects and debilitating inflation, so much progress has been erased during these months. Gender-based violence, human trafficking, poverty, food insecurity have all risen alarmingly.

Our Board chair, Kathleen Lauder, a long-time supporter, friend and an international development specialist, is with me. Kathleen was in Lesotho twice in the very early days of the organization – no staff, no office, little structure. We reminisced about the sometimes harrowing adventures and struggles in those years building credibility, programs, partnerships and progress. It is exciting for her to see Help Lesotho now – robust, highly trained staff, incredibly well respected and impactful.

As you can imagine, I longed to see each one of our staff – to see for myself and hear know how they are. I love and admire them. After the beneficiaries, they are my daily concern. Zoom and Google Meet just aren’t the same. Our driver, dear Ntate Motsamai, greeted us warmly at the airport and, after a two-hour drive to our Hlotse Centre, the staff and children welcomed us with songs, signs and hugs. Home again!

I write after our first week – predictably crammed with 25 meetings as we try to make the most of this trip (my shortest visit in my 18 years). I will return for February and most of March for my usual time and donor trip, but these precious days are designated for our staff after such a long absence. There are still a couple spots open on the March 2023 trip. I would love to welcome you to the mountain kingdom.

Just since we arrived, there has been rain – finally – to drench the arid soil and prod the spring seeds and seedlings to grow after a drought of many months. As prices escalate, these homegrown vegetables are more essential than ever. At the centre, we only lost water for two days this week.

We had a great visit with our Pearl Girls and Guys4Good. These adorable grade seven children are learning how to navigate the perilous world of high school, peer pressure and adolescent confusion. They were bursting to tell us of their growth, new-found insights and how they are sharing what they learn in this program with their peers.

By-weekly, our staff congregate from various locations at the Hlotse Centre – to support each other, share their successes and challenges, and learn. This provided us with the chance to see everyone and celebrate our time together.

How they love to learn – always asking for more training. I recently finished mini-courses on suicide (Lesotho has the highest suicide rate in Africa – you can learn more here) and most recently on supporting boys and men – delving into the social-cultural issues more deeply than ever before. Following our group discussion with the male staff, they will then lead the discussion with the female staff to process the material. I love those discussions as do they, as we constantly work together to increase our effectiveness, in this case to reach one of our strategic goals to train more boys and men and hopefully, this will help.

Our staff are dedicated and care so deeply, yet each one is exposed to stories and pleas of unspeakable suffering all day long. They too face the same challenges at home. Providing useful training and support is paramount. Toward this end, I have engaged a dozen of our talented donors who have specialties to act as monthly phone/Zoom coaches for particular staff. The pairing of them has been a joy – knowing what a wonderful growth experience this will be for both. The mentees and I are thankful for donors who give so freely of their time and expertise to help our staff grow and get the attention they dearly deserve.

On this subject, one of our staff has an autistic son, another an autistic nephew. With no resources in Lesotho, I am reaching out to see if there is someone reading this letter who knows of a parent of an autistic child who might be willing to listen and support these two.  We have many deaf children at the centre and our staff have learned sign language. All of them would benefit from and appreciate learning about exceptionalities. If you can help – please reach out.

Lesotho held a national election last week and I was keen to hear the opinions on the results. We made enormous efforts to get the young people out to vote. We sent text messages to 141,000 people across Lesotho – in both English and Sesotho, distributed 3,000 handouts on why voting is so important, and reached thousands with multiple posts on social media. Of the 163K people we potentially reached, we hoped that at least 30% actually read the material – perhaps 50K. Shortly before election day, there was no electricity. Our staff were so committed to get voters out that they went out one-by-one on foot all over town encouraging people to vote. Yet, after all this work, disappointingly, Lesotho had the lowest voter turnout in the country’s recorded history at 38% – a clear indicator of how discouraged the population is with poor governance. We can only hope that those who voted did so wisely. Election monitors from many countries pronounced the election peaceful and fair. The populous has accepted the results without backlash – unlike most previous elections. The new Prime Minister, Sam Matekane, will hopefully bring the positive change this country so badly needs. He brings extensive business experience as the wealthiest person in Lesotho and seems determined to cut corruption, entitlement and restructure. We live in hope.

I met with a new class of Computer and Life Skills (CLS) participants, this time all correctional officers. Another strategic goal over the next five years is to train as many police and correctional officers as possible. We have trained many police officers and correctional guards in the past. They love it. Along with nurses and teachers, these are the frontline workers who can either help or retraumatize vulnerable girls, women and boys. Building their self-esteem and psychosocial awareness has proven to help them address their clientele with greater compassion and less judgement. I will re-visit them this week. Ironically, when I finished chatting with a youth group yesterday, there was a female police officer and former CLS graduate waiting for me. Hearing I was in town, she patiently waited for a couple of hours to tell me what a huge difference the program had made in her life. She looked to be in mid-forties and was completing her Master’s degree in social work on secondment from the police force. We had an interesting chat, while she pleaded for Help Lesotho to give this training to all the police officers and management so that they too could change.

Whether meeting with staff, professional interns, or program participants, the message is the same. Their compounded trauma peppers every conversation and meeting. The staggering need, intense fear and anxiety, and overwhelming gratitude are ever present. Our time together is filled with various combinations of tears, hugs, confessions, pleas for more training, stories of personal bravery and change, prayers of gratitude, and hope. I am constantly and deeply touched by the expressions of how important and meaningful our programs are and how loving and talented our staff.

The needs are tremendous but we are not helpless. We are focused and reaching people every minute. Last year, we helped 22,000 people. No dollar, day, conversation or effort is wasted.

I will write only one more letter this trip. So much to pack in! Kathleen and ‘M’e Mamoletsane and I are meeting in the coming week with three of the UN agencies who currently fund us to see if they will support some new work. Wish us luck!

I look out on the mountains as I write, feeling hopeful and appreciative. We have serious work to do and you are the ones that make this possible. I wish you could know what a difference it is making!

Until the next letter,

Best wishes

Peg

Read Peg’s next ‘Letter from Lesotho’ #142
Read the previous 2022 Letters from Lesotho

Greetings,

This is my last ‘Letter from Lesotho’ this season – imagine writing 140 letters! It would be fun to make a list of people who have read each of them! (Let me know if you have and I will make that list). I hope to return to Lesotho in the near future. I have some news to share with you at the end of the letter.

We near the particular parallelism when the weather in Lesotho and Canada is the same – as the former transitions to fall and us to spring. Basotho turn their thoughts to harvest; Canadians to planting. Climate change has altered the predictable, bringing hunger and erosion to the Lesotho mountains and flooding and fires to ours.

In my last letter, I mentioned our concern about the educational deficits exasperated by two years of COVID.

Help Lesotho is an educational organization. Everything we do is either psychosocial support or education.

It seems fitting that the funds raised to build one of our two centres, our precious Pitseng Centre, came from the 1400 teachers in the Ottawa Branch of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association. The buildings were constructed by local people, with a grand opening in June 2008, to wide acclaim and jubilation.

In its 14 years, the Pitseng Centre has hosted well over 100,000 visits – people who long to learn or be listened to, little ones who crave joy and protection, primary school children learning to read and comprehend the challenges they need to face, youth who devour discussion about their thoughts and feelings, community leaders who proudly master basic computer skills, and grannies who cherish the companionship of those who understand.

As well as the main building, our small centre has a wonderful new playground we installed last year, an open-air classroom (lappa), outdoor toilets (latrines) and a computer lab. I think of our grannies there – asking me, or should I say imploring me, to let them come every day so they can be in a happy place and learn something new.

I have taken some of you into the computer classes where the young people proudly show us how to create a formula in excel. You may have seen the photos of the children playing cognitive games to best other children in our centre competitions in Scrabble, Monopoly, Chess or Cribbage.

Tucked inside the centre is a small library, chock-full of African-centred books for all. When a dozen small children huddle around the two wooden tables, it is nigh impossible to pass on either side to access books or leave the room. For many little ones, this is their first exposure to books. Most of our visitors live in huts without electricity and little-to-no space to read or study.

The library plays a significant role in the community in shaping attitudes and opportunities about literacy, learning and creativity. More than 50 students flock there from school every week to grab one of those precious seats. The overflow must go to the outdoor lappa or to read under a tree despite the distraction of dozens of boisterous children on the playground equipment, playing cognitive games or other activities.

We are launching more initiatives to draw the hard-to-reach, oh-so-vulnerable out-of-school youth into the womb of the centre. Many have quit school after the discouragement of losing almost two years of their education due to COVID lockdowns or whose families can no longer afford the fees. Last year, we invested in new books for this age group in efforts to entice them away from depression, isolation and relentless household chores. Whether to play chess, join the computer classes, or participate in the many programs, these connections and constructive activities are instrumental in preventing teen pregnancies, crime, human trafficking, early and forced child marriages and substance abuse.

A wonderful organization called Bountiful Hope donated our computer lab in 2016, which has brought so much to the whole community. The first Computer and Life Skills class of 2022 just graduated, including 7/20 girls, and another one begins soon. One of the women is a nun from the nearby convent. Sister Itumeleng was passionate about the program and participated fully, not at all intimidated by her age difference with her youthful classmates.

This group particularly enjoyed the session on decision making, as they grasped the influence their thoughts and decisions have on their choices and consequences. When asked to anonymously write a current situation they face and feel inadequate to handle, the submissions revealed troubled youth desperate to find help in the program. They shared about conflicts and harsh treatment with parents, fear of men and the pressure to have sex, fear of teachers and life, worry about failing at school, feeling desperately lonely. This is often the first time they share such deep concerns. One wrote, “I just tested HIV positive and this has troubled me such that I think of taking my life or spreading it to more people because I feel betrayed by my partner”. The group unpacks the issues together, sharing thoughts, learning that HIV can be treated, peer pressure can be resisted, loneliness can be overcome. The girl who just tested positive felt that although no one in the room knew it was her, she had been supported and she could now take a bold decision to seek help.

Our Pitseng Centre professional intern, Moliehi, recently shared:

For many of these children, the centre is home – a place to be listened to, to be welcomed, to belong. Young Mothetho, comes daily and loves to share what she learns:

We have made a thoughtful decision to build a new library – a larger, quieter space to think – especially for the high school students. If they don’t have a place to study and books from which to learn, they cannot have a future.

The location will use the only remaining space we have left on the property – filling between the lappa on the left and the computer lab on the right as indicated by the white arrow (below).

I am focusing on the Pitseng Centre in this last letter because we have never had a designated funder for it. We have to raise the $130,000 required every year for its operations and programming. After ten generous years, a family foundation that gave us $10K a year has stopped. We occasionally have a gift specifically for this centre but the rest must come from our general pot. It is my hope that we can find a family, individual, corporation or foundation that would faithfully take this on annually, wholly or in part, to ensure its future. We can even name the centre in honour of them or a loved one. It is a large ask but I am putting it out there – in great faith that someone or a group will come forward. I love this centre and am determined to make sure it is a blessing to the community and its 3,000 annual visitors for years to come.

Next week we will officially launch our spring fundraising campaign to raise the funds to build the library. I know this is a project many will want to support. If you want to kickstart the project, you can make your donation here.

I realize many people wonder when I am going to retire.

As most of you know, I am an obsessive planner. To this end, I set my retirement date four years ago with a step-wise plan to build staff capacity, donor stewardship and organizational excellence. I am proud and grateful to say that, even with COVID, we are on track – with a wonderful leader, ‘M’e Mamoletsane, in Lesotho, a terrific board and outstanding staff. I will retire in the spring of 2023, a few months shy of my 74th birthday.

• The board and I have developed an emeritus role for me to define how I will remain involved. I am not going anywhere – just stepping back from active leadership.
• This month, we formally begin the search for our next executive director (ED), who will hopefully start an overlap with me in the late fall.
  I plan to spend a good part of next winter in Lesotho with ‘M’e Mamoletsane and the new ED toward a smooth transition.
• By our fiscal year-end in June 2022, we will have a new five-year strategic plan in place to leverage our experience and expertise to reach significantly more people in new, deeper and exciting ways.
• We have a full year ahead to celebrate our first 19 years, to prepare for the transition and lay the foundation for the wonderful new initiatives we have planned.
• I feel we are just getting started. My retirement is no surprise and a terrific opportunity to bring a different skill set for a different phase of the organization. We no longer need a founder. Our next ED does not have to do what I did. The foundation, trust, structures, governance, content and capacity are all in great shape and well-developed. The new ED will bring other skills, networks and capacities that I do not have and which will be needed in a new time and context.

I mention it now as we will post the position soon and I want to tell you myself. We will of course keep you informed as our plans evolve but for now, please pray with me that the new ED is longingly waiting for exactly this opportunity to serve in this very special way with and for the most amazing people one could imagine.

As a final note, many have asked me about the next donor trip to Lesotho. We are planning this for February 2023 so if you are interested let us know. Three guests from the 2019 and 2020 trips share some of their fondest memories here.

I look forward to the future. When I am relieved of my formal duties, I will have more time to chat with you, spread the word, be with my grandchildren, and make different kinds of contributions. As I write this, my mind is full – I tell everyone who will listen to me that I love our donors, that each one is a privilege to know.

Together, we will launch the second innovative phase of Help Lesotho and continue its achievements in reaching 265,000 more people. We are a team and you are key members.

I send you energy as you rebuild your resilience after such an arduous couple of years – thank you for walking this journey with me.

Love,

Peg

Click to reach Letter #4 from 2022
Click to read Letter #3 from 2022
Click to read Letter #2 from 2022
Click to read Letter #1 from 2022
Click to read past Letters from Lesotho