Our Work

Over the last 17 years of working in rural communities in Lesotho, Help Lesotho has had over 50,000 graduates of intensive life skills and psychosocial support programs and reached more than 250,000 people.

Context

Lesotho, a forgotten country plagued by HIV/AIDS, gender-based violence and poverty.

  • Nearly 1/4 people in Lesotho are HIV-positive. An entire generation was lost to this epidemic, leaving a massive cohort of orphaned children.
  • 86% of girls and women in Lesotho report having experienced gender-based violence.
  • Half of Lesotho’s population lives in poverty, with much higher rates in rural areas where Help Lesotho works. Unemployment is rampant.

Bottom Line: When people grow up in trauma and with little support, guidance or positive role models, their personal and professional development fall behind.

Help Lesotho’s programs help vulnerable people face their challenges, reshape their self-awareness as they learn to think for themselves and build healthier futures for themselves, their families and their communities.

Our Approach

Help Lesotho delivers compassionate life skills training programs..

At two community leadership centres and in rural villages.

To vulnerable populations ranging from school-children to grandmothers.

To help participants build resilience and become role models for social change.

That cover topics such as gender equity, sexual and reproductive health, communication and leadership skills.

That provide participants with psychosocial support to address grief and personal challenges.

In safe environments conducive to the development of critical thinkers and healthy decision makers.

Our Programs

The goal of all Help Lesotho programs is to help people build their resilience. No matter the program, we use the same core content to foster self-esteem, equip people to make healthy decisions, and share factual information about human rights, gender equity and HIV/AIDS.
See our full list of programs here.

One Year of Impact

2020-2021

21,893
visits to our
Seotlong Centres

3,228
participants in intensive programs

17,107
additional people reached indirectly*

*does not include people reached through TV and radio programming

740
participants in our Grief & Loss sessions
828
one-on-one psychosocial support conversations
77
participant-led support group meetings

Individual Impacts

  • Overcome challenges and begin moving forward
  • Build resilience
  • Improved well-being
  • Empowered as leaders for positive social change

Family Impacts

  • Healthier relationships
  • Effective communication between generations and partners
  • Supporting one another
  • Less violence and abuse

Community Impacts

  • Taking responsibility for protecting rights, especially for girls and women
  • Challenge embedded norms related to gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS

How Do We Know?

There’s no way around this – our impacts are difficult to measure. Our programs lead to individual attitude and behavior change with subjective concepts such as self esteem and decision making. Our programs lead to healthier choices now and long after the program ends.

We hear from hundreds of people about how their lives have changes for the better as a result of our programs – this is how we know. Our program participants seek out opportunities to tell us how important our work is – and beg for the programs to be offered to every Mosotho in the country!

If you want to see concrete numbers, check out our 2021 Leaders-in-Training Impact Report or our 2020 Alumni Reunion Report.

The best way to understand our impact is to read the stories of our beneficiaries.