by Peg Herbert | Mar 3, 2017 | Letters From Lesotho, Letters From Lesotho 2017 |
Lumelang,
It is my custom when I arrive to meet individually with each staff. This is their time to use however they wish. They too are a product of the challenges our beneficiaries face.
When I first came to Lesotho in the early 2000’s, the life expectancy was 35. Now it is 46.
Each person has suffered so much loss. Some use their time with me to talk about their personal lives, get advice or a listening ear. Others talk about their professional goals and seek ways to grow. Some want advice on their children and relationships. Some confide issues that plague them emotionally. Giving everyone the opportunity to talk takes days but is a precious time for me personally and for each of them.
One of the new staff said:
“I still cannot believe – we all cannot believe the care and love we get at Help Lesotho. It is unbelievable to put us first, to put the beneficiaries first, that this is all for them. It has changed my life and putting this into practice changes everyone. They say – who are these people who are so kind and who honour us? ”
Another said,
“I am so grateful to have this job. Now I can put bread on my family’s table. Before this there were many times when there was none. I have two younger brothers and one younger sister for whom I must pay schools fees and see them launched into life.”
Another said:
“Help Lesotho makes my life to flourish!”
I think I am going to keep that line!!
Our new staff are struggling to handle the highly emotional content of our training sessions. Several wept at how touched they are by the pain our beneficiaries are experiencing and the joy of truly helping them.
One of our computer instructors spoke about an older man in our program. He is not clean or groomed, which is very unusual here, and has several disabilities – of sight, a tremor and he struggles to understand. Perhaps he has not gone to school. When a point is explained clearly and presented in a large font, he gets it and remembers it. He is trying so hard. He wants to learn computers so that he can write a story book. He was so grateful and excited to be selected for the program that he came three hours early the first day. He still comes two hours early every day to sit outside and contemplate this magnificent learning experience he is fortunate enough to have. He simply cannot wait.
Of course I had to meet him.
(Katiso with Thato Jr.)
His name is Katiso. He is 41 years old with cerebral palsy. He loves to write stories and volunteer at his church.
When one sees how hard it is for him to articulate his words so that others can understand, it becomes so much more clear why learning to type will give him a whole new world of communication and self-expression.
Two of our grannies died this quarter. There is so much sadness.
I leave for the airport within the hour to fetch our special guests who are coming to explore our work and this magnificently beautiful country with me. We have two guests from Toronto – Susan Richardson and Carmen Piche; one from Huntsville – Carol Gibson; and five from Ottawa – Hugh Dorward, Cathy Steele, Marianne Feaver, David Esdaile, and Jennifer Parr, who was our Board Chair for ten years and an enormous help to me for the past decade. I think this is Jennifer’s 5th or 6th time in Lesotho! She has a Basotho daughter, Thato, whom she sponsored as a child and who is now in university and a mother of a young daughter.
We have many exciting adventures planned and I so look forward to sharing my love of Lesotho with them. More on that later….
Thank you for the feedback on my letters, it is lovely to touch base with you and to know your thoughts.
My very best to you all,
Salang hantle
As Help Lesotho’s Founder and Executive Director, Dr. Peg Herbert spends at least two months a year living and working in Lesotho. As a Canadian exemplifying what good international development looks like, Peg shares her experiences through ‘Letters from Lesotho’ so we can all get a glimpse of what makes Lesotho such a special place.
If you would like to connect with Peg about her letters:
by Peg Herbert | Feb 22, 2017 | Letters From Lesotho, Letters From Lesotho 2017 |
Greetings,
As I write, I am looking out the window as a group of children are, yet again, surreptitiously sneaking through the vertical bars in the gate beside the playground at our Seotlong Centre.
They are deaf children who live at a residential school across the field. Over the last couple years we have developed several programs for them and their teachers. Some of our staff are learning sign language to be able to talk with the children. You would be surprised at how little they are for their ages, developmentally delayed from malnutrition and illness. They are so thin that they can indeed successfully squeak through the 8” space between the bars in our gate. The Centre is closed for the day, yet they cannot stay away. This place is the one space in their lives where they are treated as equals, as valuable, as welcomed visitors.
It beacons them!
(I could not let them see me watching, but here are a few of them the next day when the Centre opened.)
I want to tell you about a young man named Tsita.
Tsita was 29 in 2015. School ended for him in 1999 after completing grade seven at the age of 14. There were no funds in the family for school fees to continue his education. Like so many young boys in Lesotho, Tsita became a herd boy, looking after cattle and sheep up in the mountains of the northern corner of Lesotho in Butha Buthe.
For 14 years, he lived an isolated life, wandering the mountains, without education or socialization. When his village chief called a gathering to declare that herd boys were being recruited for Help Lesotho’s Herd Boy Program, he saw his chance. This was the first opportunity he had ever had to better himself. He attended the Saturday classes faithfully for the full six months of the program, soaking up every word and idea, never minding that many of the participants were still children and he was not. He participated in a herd boy initiative to march in the streets of Butha Buthe to raise awareness of the need to end sexual violence against women. Tsita graduated from the program, proud and changed.
For 14 years, he lived an isolated life, wandering the mountains, without education or socialization.
(Tsita at Herd Boy training. He is the one wearing a black woolen hat with one red and three grey stripes sitting just behind the speaker.)
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In early 2015, our program officer selected Tsita to represent Help Lesotho’s Herd boy program at our 10th Anniversary Celebrations in March of that year. With lots of encouragement and support, he wrote and delivered the first speech of his life in front of the King and Queen of Lesotho, honoured international guests, his peers and national TV and radio. Despite almost paralyzing nervousness, he spoke bravely and passionately.
Below is his speech, followed by the story of a meeting I had with him exactly two years later.
My name is Tsita I live in a little village in Butha Buthe. I have been one of the participants in the herd boys training this year by Help Lesotho. The training has been indeed a life-changing experience. As herd boys we spend most of our lives looking after animals with no information about issues concerning us. Before I attended the Help Lesotho training, I used to be one of the perpetuators of violence against women. This was because it seemed normal to us as herd boys to beat and sexually violate women’s rights because no one took any action about it. The issue of gender equity to me and my fellow colleagues was understood as a way of depriving us of our privileges and punishing us.
The training changed my whole thinking. Now we as herd boys we understand that women are human beings like us and they have similar rights and worth just like us. We are both equal creations of God and therefore we as men should stop abusing women and girls. Ladies and gentlemen, gender equity doesn’t imply that men should be inferior. It only means that both men and women should have equal opportunities and power in making decision about their lives because they both have the same capability.
To all young men in Lesotho, please let’s join hands and empower our beloved women and girls. Where are we expecting them to live when we mistreat them? They are our mothers and wife. Let us respect and honour them for the greatness they bring to our lives.
Now in my village we have a committee of herd boys who are fighting hard reporting cases of women and girls abuse. This, I am making a plea to every man in Lesotho to make it their assignment in their communities. Enough with women and girls abuse in any form.
We young men should work together to end violence against women.
I would humbly like to thank Help Lesotho for changing my life. Thank you.
Everywhere I went after the celebrations, no matter how remote the village, people were talking about this speech. Never had a herd boy taken such leadership or admitted publicly to being an abuser. People listened. Tsita became famous in his village. Peers who attended university weren’t even as renowned.
I too was deeply moved and read his speech to many people in Canada. He had captured not only the plight of the herd boy but their potential to be reintegrated into society as effective leaders.
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Two years later, in February 2017, I asked one of our staff to find him to meet with me. I saw this as a test of the real impact of this program.
Could a young man hold onto that change over time?
Tsita arrived exactly on time, sparklingly clean and beaming. I did not ask where he got the money for the 75-minute fare to come on public transport. He was now 31, still living with his mother, his brother’s wife and two children, and his deceased sister’s two orphans.
He could not contain his delight. He was so proud to receive the call that he told the entire village, “Help Lesotho still remembers me!”.
Tsita remains a herd boy, looking after cattle for hire for approximately CAD $20 (M200) a month. He said the program had changed him forever. He had been a harsh man, thoughtlessly abusing women sexually. He told me that once he started the program he stopped completely and never did it again. To this day, whenever he sees a woman or girl being abused he either tries to stop it or he reports it.
He said that he learned how important it was to know his HIV status, to get tested regularly and to get treatment if required (while he spoke, he proudly pulled out his testing card to show me that it was indeed up to date and indicated that he carries it with him always).
Tsita said that he tells people around his village that women must be respected and should never be abused because they have rights. He reported that before he had been so shy that he never spoke to others and could not express what was inside but after he went through the program, he became confident and can now express himself. His face shone as he described how proud he was of himself now. He said if it had not been for this program, he probably would have been in prison but now he will never go there because he knows how to do better.
When I asked what he would say to the donors if he could, he quickly responded that they must be very happy that they had given this program and that his life will be better, that he is a different man and he will make them proud.
As he talked openly and with great enthusiasm through an interpreter, Tsita kept repeating how proud he was of Help Lesotho, over and over again.
Needless to say, I was very moved.
I took him into the kitchen where we were feeding lunch to the 65 Leaders-in-Training participants and asked our cook, ‘M’e Muntja, to plate a REALLY big lunch for Tsita while the staff got the funds to pay for his transport both ways.
Indeed, as Tsita says, you would have been proud too!
Sala hantle,
Peg
PS. Shortly after the anniversary, we lost the funding for the Herd Boy Program. During a talk I gave upon my return from Lesotho in 2016, a long time child sponsor stepped forward to help. She and her family nearly fully-funded this program for two years (300 herd boys))! Without this incredible support, it is unlikely that we could have run the program at all. Here is the proof – one person certainly can make a difference!
PPS. We are also so grateful to the people who donated towards the Herd Boy Program and who supported our online ‘Giving Challenge’ in June 2016 to raise the remaining funds required. Together, you made it possible for herd boys to get the same support Tsita received, including new blankets and gum boots for all!
As Help Lesotho’s Founder and Executive Director, Dr. Peg Herbert spends at least two months a year living and working in Lesotho. As a Canadian exemplifying what good international development looks like, Peg shares her experiences through ‘Letters from Lesotho’ so we can all get a glimpse of what makes Lesotho such a special place.
If you would like to connect with Peg about her letters:
by Peg Herbert | Feb 14, 2017 | Letters From Lesotho, Letters From Lesotho 2017 |
Lumelang,
I have been in Lesotho for over a week. It is wonderful to be back and to see all the progress which has been made and lives which continue to be changed thanks to all of you. All is well with me, although one of my suitcases took six days longer to arrive than I did!
The good news to report is there have been regular rain showers, for which we are grateful. In a country like Lesotho rain is synonymous with life.
We are also grateful for our outstanding Country Director, Shadrack Mutembei. It was six years ago now when I first interviewed him for the position with Help Lesotho. Shadrack leads a large staff here in Lesotho, all of whom work tirelessly towards accomplishing the mission of our organization. He has been such a blessing to the organization, and to the staff in Lesotho.
Last week we held three days of interactive staff meetings, two of which were quarterly meetings when all the staff come together from various locations to be inspired, informed and re-focused. The heads of each department heard about our impact, our actual results against targets and lessons learned of the previous quarter. We are always learning to be able to move forward with excellence.
We are thrilled to report that because of our amazing staff and your support, Help Lesotho’s 20 programs reached over 10,000 beneficiaries between July 1 and December 31, 2016!
I am often asked how we do so much with what we have.
Truly, it is because of our passionate, effective and compassionate staff in both Lesotho and Canada.
At these meetings last week was an inclusive group of 38, including our cook, full-time and part-time staff, farmer Peter the security guard at the Pitseng Centre, our drivers, our interns from Canada this year, Maddison Van Balkom and Emily Major-Girard, and three granny leads who do the village work. Everyone from the cleaners to department heads had a proper hard covered planner to take down their notes.
It takes many hands and hearts to support and train this many fragile people through our long term, comprehensive programs. Our staff in both centres are so talented and dedicated.
We have thousands in and out of our centres annually, and many of our programs are offered way up in the mountains, and it takes our entire team to make the success of our programs possible.
As you can see in the picture each one was dressed smartly and professionally in their Sunday best, beaming with pride. They are dear people to me. All of them are local, and they are filled with confidence, self-respect, purpose and camaraderie. Our staff are also products of their culture and challenge that come growing up in Lesotho.
You may not know this, but all program officers must have completed our intensive leadership training course to be eligible for employment with Help Lesotho. Many are youth, men and women we have trained, some of them have been with us from the beginning. Two were sponsored children since grade 8 and for whom Help Lesotho has been the only family they know. One started in our Young Mothers program, others graduated from our Computer and Life-skills Course or our Leadership programs.
Their training enables them to personally and professionally deal effectively with the specific vulnerabilities and trauma facing our beneficiaries. It was a special time for me to share with the staff. It is important to celebrate that Help Lesotho not only assists our beneficiaries but provides jobs to local people.
All of them are local, and they are filled with confidence, self-respect, purpose and camaraderie.
This particular meeting opened with two songs especially written for this occasion and they sung them like a choir of angels. A poem was read , gifts were given and a beautiful handmade card was created to welcome me. Their expressions of love brought me to tears, and rendered me speechless, which as those who know me is nigh on impossible!!!
When I recovered my ability to speak, I read notes and letters from several of you and reminded them that they are known, cared for, and appreciated for their hard work and dedication in such difficult issues and circumstances. They were visibly moved to know that people so far away truly care about them, who pray for them, sharing what extra they have to support their work.
Several staff members were so touched, that it changed and inspired them to do more.
They were incredulous that grandmothers made things to sell to send funds over; that pensioners sacrificed to help; that little children would share.
The recent Facebook post of my six-year-old grandson, Grayson, donating $20 to buy a pair of shoes for a child in Lesotho seemed to strike a particular cord.
The third day of staff meetings was a bi-annual team building retreat. We made the challenging climb in the heat to the top of Thaba Bosiu, the sacred place of the founding of the Basotho nation and the table-top vantage to view the mountain of the Mokorotlo, the famous Basotho Hat, one finds in fields and on the national flag. For many of the staff, this was their first time to have this opportunity. It was a fun day and so vital to allow our staff time to be together and to fill up when often their work can be so emotionally draining.
On another note, I want to mention how touched we are by your enthusiastic response to our legacy initiatives and the number of people who took advantage of the free estate planning service offered through our partnership with Advisors with Purpose (AWP). While we will always gratefully accept legacy gifts from donors, our partnership with AWP ends March 31, 2017. If you still want to benefit from their service, please contact 1-866-336-3315 or visit https://www.helplesotho.org/ways-to-give/future-gift/ for more information.
Many of you ask how you can help:
Sponsor a child: We need more new sponsors for the children on our waiting list who cannot go to high school in 2017 without your help! Please contact kate@helplesotho.org to sign up, and visit helplesotho.org/ways-to-give/sponsorship/sponsor-a-child/ for more information.
Spread the word through social media: So many people tell me how much they love reading these letters because they get to truly see what is going on in Lesotho in real time. Please share these letters and our posts on Help Lesotho’s Facebook and Twitter channels to engage your families, colleagues and friends
- Facebook: facebook.com/helplesothopage
- Twitter: helplesotho
- My personal Twitter: pegherbert
My time is just beginning here and there is so much to tell you. Thank you for your interest and encouragement.
We are in this together!
Salang hantle,
Peg
by Peg Herbert | Mar 22, 2016 | Letters From Lesotho, Letters From Lesotho 2016 |
As I traversed the tarmac in the rain to the small plane that would take me from Lesotho to Johannesburg, the skies were foreboding with a steady rain.
Rain!
So little, so late. I am haunted by the sight of the fields, especially in Thaba Tseka. Corn that should be shoulder height is less than a foot; fields that should be bursting with produce are unplanted or dying well before maturity. The sight of the dry streams and river beds, women washing in shallow muddy puddles, and children pushing wheelbarrows up and down the mountain roads to find water makes the issue clear and terrifying. As I leave, the nights are cooler; the mornings crisp. Winter will come – as inevitable as the sunrise and with it cold and hunger.
The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation recently issued a warning that the state of malnutrition for under-five-year-olds in Lesotho is critically high. According to the report released last week, the national malnutrition rate has risen to 33% of children suffering from malnutrition and 50% from anaemia.
I will miss the sound of cows, sheep and horses waking me up. I will appreciate my showers more. I will be more grateful for what I have.
A generous partner foundation in Denver, Colorado has purchased a brand-new computer lab for our Pitseng Centre with 22 new computers. It is so exciting to think of how this will revitalize the community and give students, youth and adults a chance to learn marketable skills. Of course, they will also take life skills during their two-month course – that is the deal! The chief and local counselors have already signed up! Discouraged and disengaged out-of-school youth, always so hard to reach, will have a purpose and a chance to change their lives and behaviour. Young mothers will begin to believe they can move on with their lives. We expect the delivery in a few weeks.
The community cannot wait – this is the most exciting thing that has happened since we opened the Centre in June 2008!
The past two months in Lesotho have been packed. What stands out the most though is the tremendous efforts our communities and beneficiaries expend to show how much they love and appreciate our work. We get constant messages, letters and speeches from our beneficiaries of all ages – more grateful and heartfelt than you can imagine – to thank us – to thank you – for caring so much about them and their lives.
One example is a speech a young woman made at the intensive Leaders-in-Training graduation last week:
The Help Lesotho staff have always seemed to understand that attitude is contagious. Thanks for your positive attitude when we found ourselves dwelling on the negatives of life. You help us count our blessings instead of our troubles. Your optimism was contagious, it gave us the courage to dream and the faith to believe that our dreams can come true. Thanks for the lessons about life. By your words and actions, you have taught us about love, discipline, hope, courage, responsibility and more. One of life’s greatest ironies is there’s so much to learn in so little time. That’s why we value the wisdom you’ve shared with us. You cared enough to teach, and we won’t forget.
Thanks for your care, your concern, your help and your kindness. Even in your busiest moments, you always made time for us. Through your words and deeds, you have taught us a lesson that will last a lifetime; the power of compassion. We will be forever grateful.
Thanks for listening to our dreams and thanks for believing in them. When we summoned the courage to confide in you, you supported us, you encouraged us and you trusted us. If you harboured any doubts, you hid them. Please know that your faith was effective. Because you believed in us, we can have faith and believe in our dreams, too.
— Ramotheba
When I meet our grannies, as old and poor as they are, they are dressed neatly in their finest Seshoeshoe dresses with gifts of song and dance. They are bursting with speeches to share what they have learned and their plans to make life better for themselves and their children. They write songs of thanks. They hold my hands as if ever to let them go.
Our Help Lesotho family is enormous and loving – it is amazing. Just one example was the reception we had at a mountain school a 50-minute horse ride up into the clouds. We were met by the entire community with traditional songs and dances. The 156 children in this tiny primary school wore the track suits we had provided last year – to replace their threadbare clothes. They wore the Toms shoes we had distributed instead of bare feet.
I took our international guests to a VERY remote village to meet some grannies. The whole village turned up – a village of old grannies and children. One rarely sees a man or youth. The men have died or left and the youth have gone to seek work and a better future. With the help of our local staff, I had pressed upon them beforehand that they should not prepare food. The Basotho are so generous and hospitable but it is too painful to take food from their meagre supplies. I struggle with how to graciously keep them from making these enormous meals when I come. After a wonderful visit, a spokeswoman from the grandmother group in that area handed me the equivalent of CAD $5 in small bills for us to purchase drinks in town to compensate for the lack of opportunity to provide us with a meal. I know very well how much that money represents to them and was almost in tears to accept – which I must. They gave us handmade pots and brooms. Such generosity is beyond humbling – the widow’s mite!
As I return home to Canada, I am racking my brain to think of more ways to engage people in this amazingly powerful work. It truly matters – and the Basotho are counting on us.
We so appreciate the few large donors we have. Their consistent, generous donations help to reduce our reliance on the often uncertain availability of grants and ensure we can provide the services we know are needed so badly. Finding more such large donors is a constant challenge that keeps me awake at night. I believe completely that if people could see our work they would be so happy to support it. This is what each person who sees our work in person tells me!They proudly showed us the repairs to the holes in the concrete floors of their classrooms. They ask for nothing. They cheered and made a public announcement when I told them they will soon be receiving solar lights for their dungeon-like classrooms and for every student to bring home, thanks to your generous support.
So much has been done since my first visit in August 2004, and so much is yet to be accomplished. I am very excited as we complete our strategic plan for 2016-2019. Our growth and implementation has been targeted and successful. We know what we need to do and how to do it. We are ready!
Thank you for walking this journey with us – it is such a privilege to do this together ….. and as this little mountain school says:
God bless Help Lesotho 2016!
With my love and appreciation,
Peg
Read Peg’s other 2016 ‘Letters from Lesotho’.
by Peg Herbert | Mar 11, 2016 | Letters From Lesotho, Letters From Lesotho 2016 |
Lumelang,
On Wednesday, we bid farewell to our four special guests from North America, Gail Helmcken, Judith Manley, Jan Miller and Patti Giffin. It truly was an amazing experience to travel around Lesotho with them and see people, places, customs and landscapes through their eyes. They were such a pleasure to have. I marveled at their reactions to watching traditional dancing, hearing the unbelievably magnificent singing, and reading to the most adorable children you have ever seen.
- They met young mothers and played with their babies.
- They built key-hole gardens with grannies.
- They watched a weaving demonstration by disabled women, and participated in our leadership training on sexual violence and grief and loss.
- They heard grannies, children and youth open their hearts about their troubles and how they have learned to overcome them.
- They traveled by horseback in the tops of these majestic mountains to one of the most isolated and poorest schools you can imagine.
- They met a fine young man in Thaba Tseka, one of Gail’s sisters’ sponsored children, who is 17 years old and starting grade eight. He is over the moon to be able to continue his education.
- They attended church in the middle of nowhere.
- They were greeted by traditional chiefs, local councillors and villagers with grace and warmth.
- They received a unique dance from a witch doctor.
- They served grannies their special monthly lunch.
- They learned a bit of Sesotho.
- They laughed and occasionally cried.
This was only the second time I have led a group to Lesotho to experience the ‘mountain kingdom’. We feel this is an important way to show our donors the enormous impact of their funds. Yet regardless of what we say, visitors are never prepared for the depth of gratitude, the magnitude of our work or the gentle loveliness of the beautiful Basotho people. Our guests cherish the authentic activities with our staff and beneficiaries. It truly is a life-changing experience. We were all deeply touched by their passion for our work and the bonds they formed with the staff and beneficiaries.
We have decided to do another trip next year to coincide with our Grandmother Conference, where we bring all 200 grandmothers from our Grandmother Support Program together from all over the mountains. It is five days of learning, sharing and empowerment. Guests of this next trip will have the unique opportunity to spend time with grannies at this inspirational conference in addition to visiting rural primary schools, touring the beautiful countryside, and meeting children and youth at our Leadership Centres.
If you are interested in joining me for the Mountain Kingdom Experience in 2017, please contact kate@helplesotho.org. It will be at the end of February 2017 for 12 days.
We have been working tirelessly to develop a measurement and evaluation database that will greatly increase our capacity to track our beneficiaries and most importantly – our impact. We hope to have Phase 1 complete this month. As you know, our work is complicated because we are encouraging change in human beings. Capturing such change is complex. Our database is now up and running and holding our most precious information.
For the first time ever, we have somewhere to input pre- and post- program survey information that will show the extent that Help Lesotho’s programs are helping vulnerable children, youth, and grandmothers to build their resilience, improve their self-management, and take action for the benefit of others. While data is rarely ‘exciting’, we are very excited!! Phase 2 of this project is to improve our reporting capabilities based on this data. With so many multi-faceted indicators, we require separate software to maximize the reporting capability for all this new information.
I am hopeful that someone out there will be as excited about reporting our impact as we are, and will want to help make this next phase a reality. We estimate needing $15-$20K, but will submit a more formal project outline to prospective donors. If you, your company, or someone you know is interested in helping, please reach out.
Finally, this week we held the graduations for two of our most intensive programs – each lasting two months. Our ceremonies are very special and the attendees proudly come dressed in their finest! Ntate Shadrack gave a rousing speech at each group to inspire them to become leaders. At one, there were 85 Computer and Life Skills graduates, including the police I have been writing about. The chief of police was among them and I was petitioned to train more officers from other areas – hundreds of them! The very next day, in Shadrack’s mail box, there was a letter of appreciation from the Chief with a list of 19 more officers he is hoping we will accept for training. They were so appreciative and humble in their closing remarks.
The other group was 60 graduates from our Leaders in Training Program (LIT). This is our most intensive program, involving the entire organization to pull it off when we have so much else going on. As they ate their celebratory lunch, I was able to speak to each and every graduate. I almost had to leave twice to fight back the tears.
They were so appreciative – intently telling me how their lives have changed and how much they want Help Lesotho’s programs to continue and reach their families and friends. They praised and thanked the staff for their kindness and support. They repeatedly asked me to thank the donors who made this possible. They pledged to return to their families and communities to step up and speak out against injustice, gender inequity and violence against women. If you could have heard the men in their commitment to change to protect women.
Words fail me in describing how deeply I was touched.
I started this annual program in 2006 and estimate that we have trained over 500 youth to date. Imagine the cumulative impact of these fine young people all over the country! One young man tweeted during the day:
‘M’ Peg said, “we believe in you. We have put our hearts and souls into you; the best of everything we have has been offered to you”
Reflecting on today’s events @helplesotho ,
‘M’e Peg said to us “it’s all for you and now you need to go out and make it all for them”
A special thank you to all the Help Lesotho family for taking us through this journey that is LIT. Now it’s our turn!
I guess that pretty much says it all! Wishing each one well from Lesotho.
Peg
