Even though ‘M’e Mamoletsane and I meet for a couple of hours weekly to share updates on the many issues we are facing and the opportunities we are chasing, there are always things that need immediate response. Some emails tell me of sad news of our beneficiaries. Others reveal the latest on the social-political issues in Lesotho from my newsfeed. There might be an issue with maintenance in our centres, a new report or story on the impact we are making – on an individual or on a group, a new request for proposals from UNICEF or UNFPA. My inbox is also the conveyer of the dearest messages from donors in support and encouragement. Every day has its surprises.

A recent email reported the reach of a special post on our Facebook page. It was one of the most popular posts we have ever had (over 7,000 views!) – about a man who has no Facebook account. Ntate Motsamai, our incredible driver, was awarded his Ten-Year Loyalty Plaque at a recent staff meeting. I so vividly remember hiring him. We had decided we needed a professional driver to transport staff to our outpost locations. I had done a lot of the driving myself over the years but no other program staff had a license, nor were confident to get one.

Over these many years, Ntate has transported thousands of pounds of goods to our beneficiaries and staff to the most rural sites you can imagine. When we have international guests, he and I drive in convoy. He treats our guests as royalty and they all end up loving him (many commented on the Facebook post). He helps the grannies, translates for me, makes our stressed-out young mothers laugh, and kicks a ball around with the herd boys. He and I have had so many adventures – and misadventures – together. Had I been in Lesotho, I would love to have given him this honour myself – with a huge hug. He is a very dear man – who is now famous!

As well as a gift, ‘M’e Mamoletsane took he and his wife to the (one and only) hotel for a nice lunch to celebrate.

Our fabulous head of finance, Lesley Griffiths, also celebrates her 5-year anniversary at Help Lesotho this week. Lesley was our auditor for 8 years prior to joining us, so she has been with us and our growth for much of our journey. She stewards the financial team and its accountability with expertise, the diligence of a pit-bull, and the passion of a forensic auditor. Our last five audits have been ‘clean’ with no suggestions for improvement.

One cannot overstate the value of loyal employees who care deeply for our beneficiaries and always put them first.

Since 2006, we have held our annual Leaders-in-Training (LIT) Program at this time of year. As usual, 65 carefully chosen young men and women between ages 19-27 are launched on an exploration of themselves and their ideas that will transform them forever.

I always look forward to the first morning – watching them come into the centre with a mixture of anticipation and apprehension, not knowing what to expect, hopeful something good will happen. I too am filled with hope that something beyond wonderful will happen for them – this is why we exist.

At the staff’s request, I conduct the first session of the program every year on self-awareness – the last two years by Zoom. Even with the awkwardness of a screen, masks and distance, their questions to me are filled with longing for guidance and care:

• “’M’e, how can I learn to be confident, I am always afraid?”;
• “’M’e, I want to make better decisions. Please tell me how”;
• “’M’e, I am crying all the time, how can I learn to stop”.

One wants to just hold each one for a while and listen. They are desperate to know better; to do better. Our staff do an amazing job with all the love and care possible. Everyone grows, everyone loves the program. The participants develop amazing friendships, many of which last a lifetime.

As I write, our staff are playing a friendly soccer game vs. the LIT participants. Everyone is out cheering each other on! The match is ongoing, so no final score to report yet. Amid the heaviness of the world this week, I find comfort in seeing these young people having fun. 

I write about this program every year because it is central to our mission to: 1) help young people heal and grow to take personal and social responsibility and leadership; and 2) identify promising young leaders as candidates for Help Lesotho’s Professional Internship Program. I write about this every year because the need is extraordinary and pressing. Lesotho requires ethical, wise leaders more than anything. With the exception of two, all our program officers are graduates of this program as it forms the foundation of values, ethics, commitment to excellence, and compassion that is the life breath of Help Lesotho.

When ‘M’e ‘Mamoletsane sat in on the Grief and Loss session last week, it shook her to the core. The depth of their pain is unbelievable and it pours forth as an emotional avalanche the minute the dam is breached.

Our recent three-year evaluation of the program allows me to share a sample of the data collected through our participant feedback surveys. Their choice of most meaningful topics is consistently self-awareness, self-esteem, grief and loss, and communication. Perhaps the most stable and valuable measure of longitudinal impact is the unsolicited positive feedback and appreciation we receive from LIT alumni – even after 5, 10 years! The most common suggestion is that the program be longer and available to all youth in Lesotho! The full 2021 LIT evaluation, including impact stories, is available here.

You might also enjoy watching this video (about 12 minutes long) of two of our current Professional Interns, Lineo and Motopi, who participated in LIT in 2021. 

We have an abbreviated version of the LIT content in our Computer and Life Skills Program offered at both centres throughout the year. As well as life skills sessions, the participants learn the basics of word processing, spreadsheets and professional presentation. One of those morning emails shared this update:

Three of the young women in our current course, Pulane, Rorisang and Motena, are between 18-20 years of age and were friends before joining the program. When discussing the importance of building healthy friendships, they shared the challenges of being good friends to each other. Pulane teared as she described her feeling of being trapped between her two friends who fight almost every day.

They said they realized in the session on friendship that they never feel they belong and so they are too intense with each other – wanting someone to love them. They compete for approval and superiority at who is the smartest or the best looking. The girls said they understood their emotional needs better now and that their need for approval was bringing behaviour they were ashamed of now. They became aware that children in Lesotho rarely feel they belong or are accepted, especially when they are orphans or if they live by themselves at a young age, and that this is a reason why children don’t get along or do well at school. Often their friends are all they have and they now realize that if they fail to build healthy friendships, they find themselves in risky behaviours such as early pregnancy, early marriage and dropping out of school. They said that equipping the young people with knowledge and skills and these valuable lessons is the most important thing Help Lesotho has offered to them.

To conclude on some levity, you might enjoy this video – the two ladies are absolutely crazy and the footage of the beyond-rough roads and typical Basotho culture is wonderful. I have driven a huge white double cab Toyota Hilux pickup on exactly these roads for close to twenty years. Believe me, they were even worse back then!  If you watch to the end you will get a sense of some of the people I meet and the places I go! Enjoy.

Thank you to those who responded to the survey in the last letter. We all enjoyed reading your comments – and appreciate them.

Every day, we try anew. Everyone is important.

And, so are you! I hope you are able to get the hugs and laughs you need to manage this week.

Peg

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

My personal greetings to each one,

As this letter falls into your inbox, I wonder how you are. You would be surprised at how often I think of you – wondering how our donors are doing – seeing your names, wondering if you need help or a listening ear. We are all struggling to manage during this seemingly endless pandemic and we all need support. Thank you for your messages of encouragement and for remembering us and our beneficiaries when you have so much else on your mind.

I am grateful daily that my children and six grandchildren have remained healthy the past two years, as I have. We have all had a very long reminder about gratitude!

My plan to return to Lesotho in March or April is on hold until it is safe and reasonable to satisfy four different countries’ regulations to get there and back! I will go as soon as I feel it is a good idea. We have a lot of interest in the next donor trip so we will plan that when safety allows. In the meantime, I will once again publish my ‘Letters ‘from’ Lesotho’ on our usual schedule over the next couple months. 

As we move into our third year of COVID, I am often asked how it is to lead an international team at this distance. Firstly, I want to highlight that we are now an all-female-led organization as a result of some leadership changes last year. Besides myself and our finance managers in both Canada and Lesotho, we now have a new female Country Director in Lesotho and a female Chair of the Board. This is an amazingly committed and talented team, with whom I work closely and am deeply grateful for their leadership. I have asked our two new leaders to share some thoughts with you.

Last May, ‘M’e Mamoletsane Khati took over from our wonderful Country Director, Shadrack Mutembei, who helped build our organization in Lesotho for ten years. I love working with ‘M’e ‘Mamoletsane and know that she will continue to guide and grow the organization for years to come.  Many of you have met her already and I know those who haven’t yet, will want to. She writes:

I hear often from community leadership, chiefs and councillors, and partners how our programs have improved their communities and their relationships with each other – even economic improvements!  Our grannies were truly dismayed during the shutdowns to miss their usual trainings, support and care. When they could meet again, they sang and ululated with sheer delight to be together and receive some relief packages. One teary, yet appreciative grandmother said; “Oa tseba ke tlohile hae ke sa tsebe na ke tlo khutla ke soka eng! Ke ne ke sena le ha e se e le phoofo feela. Empa hona joale kena le papa, le lijelello. Kea leboha Help Lesotho” loosely translated as “The children and I have been without food and now I will have good things to feed us. With my whole heart, I thank you, Help Lesotho.”

To our chagrin, our talented and beloved long-time board chair, John Graham, completed the maximum term of nine years on the board and retired in November 2021. I truly enjoyed working with John – he always had my back and remains a sage, faithful friend and supporter. Thankfully, Kathleen Lauder has taken up the mantle to guide us as our new chair. Kathleen was one of the very first people, with Sheryl Selwyn, who believed in this crazy vision I felt so compelled to do – even before my first trip to Lesotho. She has remained committed to our work and brings her own decades of experience in international development to our board. These photos were taken in Kathleen’s first of two trips to Lesotho (2006/2007) when we had no office, no staff, and almost no money! She lived in a hut in an extremely remote school.

Kathleen writes: “It is an honour and a privilege to be the chair of the Help Lesotho Board. I met Peg in 2004, before her first trip to Lesotho to “see how she could help”. Since then, I have watched in awe as Help Lesotho was structured, life-changing programs developed and implemented, staff hired and trained, and individual and institutional donors come forward to support its enormous impact. It was a joy to pray those first steps of its development with Peg on ‘our’ bench on the Rideau River. Despite hosts of enormous obstacles, she and her team have stayed firmly focused on serving the Basotho.  In my trips to Lesotho in the early days, I saw firsthand how Basotho lives were transformed through Help Lesotho’s work. It is a marvel to me how Peg’s desire to “see how she could help” has resulted an organization identified by Imagine Canada as among the best governed NGOs in Canada, one which brings life-changing support to over 15,000 Basotho each year, and which is now training other organizations to improve their impact.  I look forward to a challenging, intensely rewarding journey as the new board chair and would love to hear from you, anytime.” 

Last month, we also welcomed a new board member from Toronto – our first remote member, Susan Richardson. Susan has been a longtime supporter who has twice experienced our work directly in Lesotho. She is a sought-after executive coach and a strong advocate for our work.

Susan writes: “Although I have been a long-time supporter, yet as I reflect on my inspiring trips to Lesotho in 2017 and 2019, it is only during those trips, when I saw for myself the children, herd boys, grandmothers and the new mothers smile and dance as we arrived in the Help Lesotho truck, that I truly understood the incredible impact Help Lesotho has in the remote communities. That is why I decided to join the Board. I am honored to be joining the Board and look forward to meeting many of you, contributing as an advocate and support the organization today and as it continues to evolve”.

Leading this team remotely for two years has not diminished either my ability to remain informed or the organizational impact during the endless pivots and COVID constraints. My perennial goal is to build the kind of capacity in Lesotho that leads to progressive autonomy. As it has here, COVID has pushed our technical capacity to work together remotely. Luckily, we made a significant investment the previous year to improve our internet in Lesotho – it is still not great but it is better. Our staff in Lesotho are now more adept at and comfortable with various digital modes and apps for communication and efficiency. I am in touch with them daily through Zoom, Google Meet, WhatsApp and email. We completed a migration to Google Drive – which is free and productive. Some now have smart phones to capture better quality photos. I feel it has brought us closer. There are always opportunities in every challenge.

This increased broadband and capacity has allowed many more of our donors to ‘meet’ and talk with our staff in Lesotho through our Zoom events. It has been reciprocal and a blessing to them both. Our staff are deeply touched that our donors are so interested; our donors are deeply moved by the dedication, positive attitude and grace of our staff.

The proof in the pudding, so to speak, is that we were able to reach over 21,000 people last year – with your support. If you haven’t already looked through our Year in Review, I hope you will do so and feel encouraged that you are supporting an organization that is frugal, nimble and making an enormous difference to suffering people in a time of crisis. 94% of our revenue went to programs!

As I commence this series of five letters ‘from’ Lesotho, we wonder what you would like to hear about. I will be sharing the challenges and successes of our staff and beneficiaries but I would like you to tell me what you are most interested in by a quick click. Please take this 2-minute survey. I will ask the staff anything you like. If your question is not suitable for mass response – I will email you personally.

I do know that you wonder how COVID is affecting Lesotho. At this point, 43% have had one shot. Our staff were deemed an essential service and could thus get vaccinated early. Only one staff had COVID and he is fine. Unlike this time last year when so many were dying, the cases seem to be lighter, as they are here. We help arrange for beneficiaries to get their shots when possible. The photo of this young man on the left was taken last week in our out-of-school-boys program.

As well as rampant inflation, unemployment, depression and fear, Lesotho is again gripped by disastrous climate change conditions. This spring (September/October) started out so well – with enough rain to bring hope of a plentiful harvest. In the past few years, delayed precipitation prevented seeds from germinating. This year however, it is the opposite.

Starting in November, Lesotho experienced so much rain that roads have been washed out, gardens decimated, the Katse Dam overflowed, and food security increased dramatically – either drought or torrential rains!! In an agrarian society, this means crushed livelihoods and starvation.

Our beneficiaries need us and you are there.

Your support, encouragement, interest and care are the lifeblood of this organization and our gratitude is endless.

Be well my friends – grab onto what you can to bring joy to yourselves and others. Hopefully, we are near the end of this isolation and restriction.
I send you all a hug. I will write again soon.

Peg

Click to read Letter #2 from 2022
Click to read past Letters from Lesotho