Lesotho Boys Knitting Club

The Lesotho Boys Knitting Club.

Our board member, Dawn Marais, arrived in Lesotho last week with her friends Catherine and Chantelle.  The trio came to launch the Lesotho Boys Knitting Club for 19 boys in Nk’hu-Nk’hu village. The idea for the club came from a young boy, Katleho, who saw Dawn knitting during her last visit to the village.  Excitement was almost palpable as the club met for the first time since Katleho’s request in July.  Katleho and his friends were eager to learn new skills. 

The objectives of the Lesotho Boys Knitting Club are to train each boy as an entrepreneur.  Rutanang will do this by teaching them business and life skills while we the boys also gain the knitting skills that they requested to learn. Every club meeting begins with a devotion and opening prayer, challenging them to trust in Jesus as their personal saviour and to learn to walk each day with Him.  Ranging in age from 11 to 15 and in grades 6 and 7, these boys are thirsty for knowledge and engaged in their learning process.

Moeketsi’s showing off his first knitting success!

 A venue to meet has been a continual challenge for the club.  For now, we have been meeting in different classrooms of the nearest school. As this is not our space, we waste precious time at the beginning of each session finding someone to help us and getting keys for the classroom, despite prior arrangements.  A funny moment occurred during our third meeting when little preschoolers silently filed into the classroom, unaware of the lessons being taught, and took their seats among the comparatively large club members.

The school holiday has brought different challenges and our numbers have dropped to about 16, while this is much easier for Dawn to teach on her own, we hope to see the club grow.  The club members who continuously come back have shown such dedication and determination to get their stitches in line!  They have chosen to make fingerless gloves as their first project and Moeketsi proudly finished the first glove today!

To help the Lesotho Boys Knitting Club, and our other community programs, have their own space to meet consider donating to Rutanang Community Foundation’s effort to build Nk’hu-Nk’hu village a community center. Donate here!

EQUIPPING MEN TO BECOMING ROLE MODELS FOR THEIR FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES

Bo-ntate after a day of learning how to be better husbands from 'Me Dawn who visited from Cape Town.

When it comes to health and community development much focus is given to women and children and excludes men. Men are often said to be the cause of problems in society; as they abuse and disrespect the rights of women and children.   As an organisation, we realise that men should be part of the solution rather than being excluded in development interventions. We have launched a ministry focusing on men to help them understand that they play a vital role in society. 

Men are needed as fathers, brothers and husbands. Their roles are to love, care and protect their families. We will have 8 sessions with men teaching them life skills on personal development and parenting skills. We will be covering topics like children’s rights and responsibilities, communication, gender based violence etc. The men will also be involved with community projects.

Bo-ntate after they received their new bibles.

We aim to create a safe environment where men are supported and encouraged to be agents of change.  In our first meeting the men voiced their concern about being excluded in development.   Lack of role models and open communication is one of the biggest challenges in Basotho culture. In Lesotho, a number of Basotho men are working in the mines of South Africa leaving their children and wives behind.

This leaves boys growing up without the support of their fathers.  Men are expected to be strong and a misunderstanding of this idea often leads to abuse and violence.  As an organisation, we have been focusing on children, youth and women, but we see the importance of including men to respond to the challenges in their communities.  Each week men are given homework or activities to do at home and give feedback in the next week.  Last week, after a discussion on appreciating our families, Ntate  Mpene a member of the group said he, “planned to wake up early in the morning to prepare fire outside and prepare a meal for his family “, something that he has never done before.  We are teaching the men to reflect on what they have as well as basic changes in their daily lives, such as saying thank you to their wives and wives. We want to see Basotho men rising up to become God fearing leaders in their families & communities.  

Empowering Basotho Women and Breaking Social Norms

                                                  The ladies of Rutanang ka Lerato.

In the previous blog we talked about our women’s support group, Learning with Love or Rutanang ka Lerato. The women of this group were trained over the course of four months on a weekly basis and were trained on self-confidence, self worth, goal setting, communication and how to start conversations with their children along with much else. Most of the women are raising their children alone as they are widowed and single mothers. The support group training gave the women the confidence to work on their parenting styles and support their children in new ways.

Bo-'m'e dancing and celebrating their accomplishments. Khelele! 

On November 16th, the ladies of Rutanang ka Lerato, had their graduation from training after four months of hard work. The morning of the graduation ceremony the women went out and put up the tent for all the guests and the villagers. This is a task usually delegated as men’s work, but the women took the initiative and raised the tent, a first for the village of Nk’hu Nk’hu. The ceremony was full of singing and dancing and the women got to show off how proud they are of themselves and what they have learned. One member of the support group, 'Nteboheleng Kebane, gave a speech in which she thanked Rutanang Community Foundation (RCF) for empowering the women with the knowledge and skills to believe in themselves. She noted that she learned many things, but the thing that stood out the most to her was learning about the rights of children and how to respect their rights. ‘Nteboheleng compared the skills that they learned during their training to water, saying that water is life, and their newly acquired skills are life.

The graduation ceremony was graced by the presence of the representatives from the Ministry of Health, the Lesotho Mounted Police Services, LENASO, and WorldVision. The representatives from these organizations congratulated the women for completing this important training and being willing to take a stand in their community. They commended the ladies for their effort in helping orphans and vulnerable children(OVCs), protecting OVCs rights, and fighting abuse in their community. The various organizations are excited for the work RCF is doing and also looking forward to partnering with RCF in the future.

The ladies after receiving their certificates.

Now that the ladies’ training is complete the support group plans to work with orphans and vulnerable children in Nk’hu Nk’hu to provide psycho-social support. The women will also be reaching out to other women by establishing support groups in different villages to empower women throughout their area.

The Gender Divide

Building self confidence with the ladies of Rutanang ka Lerato.

Across the world women are regarded as inferior to their male counterparts, some countries see more extreme gender gaps than others, but Lesotho is no stranger to this divide. Women in Lesotho are not given much worth despite their critical role in the nation and their communities. In Lesotho men are the head of the households and therefore make all decisions regarding the family including ones that affect women. One example of this can be seen in sex in relationships. Men are the ones who initiate sex, decide if a condom will be used, and when the couple will have sex. There is a saying here in Lesotho that ‘men are pumpkins, spreading their vines and women are cabbages’ this saying is the essence of romantic relationships in Lesotho. It means that men are allowed to have multiple partners and women are to be faithful to one man, despite his discrepancies.

This cultural norm is perpetuating the HIV/AIDS prevalence in Lesotho, which is now at 25% making Lesotho the 2nd most infected nation in the world. Multiple partners along with biological factors and social norms are why women in Lesotho are one of the most vulnerable populations for contracting HIV. Women are not empowered to say no to sex or to say they want to use a condom. Given the susceptibility of women in Basotho culture, RCF has launched a support group programme called Learning with Love (Rutanang ka Lerato). The aim of this program is to empower women with life, leadership and parenting skills so that they can know their value and their rights. We want to help Basotho women widen their horizons beyond child bearing and household chores.

Working on self portraits and talking about what we love about ourselves. We are beautiful!

The women meet once a week to learn new skills, have some fun and support each other. Our goal is that once the women have completed the training they become orphan and vulnerable children (OVC) advocates to protect and advocate for the rights of OVCs. The women will connect the OVCs with resources and local organisations to best respond to the children’s needs.

'M'e Mathabo, a member of Learning with Love, says of the her time in the support group, “Since I have been a part of RCF Learning with Love programme, I have started believing in myself.” We hope this is the self-confidence that all of the women we are working with achieve by the end of training.