On Sunday, October 11th, Carol and Brian Russel along with friends Steve and Donna Stricker threw what G.R.O. calls ‘A party for a purpose’.  Carol, CEO of Russel Herder, a marketing firm in Minneapolis opened her house in Brainerd to her network to listen to a short presentation on G.R.O. by visiting Jean Margaritis who directs the G.R.O. projects in Lesotho.  Jean also brought back jewelry from the G.R.O. Artisans Collective in Lesotho, which is a group of HIV positive mothers who design fashion jewelry.  Carol and her friends, from this party alone, contributed enough funds for a full-year student sponsorship in Lesotho.  Learn more about throwing your own party for a purpose or other ways to get your community or network involved. Thanks Carol and Brian for hosting and to all of those who attended this great party!

G.R.O. Artisan Jewelry

Carol, Jean and Emily at the jewelry display

Posted under Uncategorized

Throughout this week, I am taking the GRO Scholars to the local internet café here in Leribe for internet training.  The café only has one computer with internet, which we reserved for four days so that the students could go after school in groups of four or five.

I was a bit surprised to learn that not one of the students had ever used the internet before. I set up email accounts for all of our scholars so that they could learn email basics this week.  Each of them get 30 minutes on the internet, during which they learn how to log-in to their accounts, compose and check email, type in web addresses, and use search engines.  Leading up to this internet training, I had completed basic computer training with the students using the Molapo High School computer lab and individual computer time on my laptop.  During these times, the students were taught how to type properly and use programs like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.

One of our GRO Scholars, Marahaba, said how she was so grateful to have learned the internet and how wonderful of an experience it was for her.  The students took notes when they were not sitting at the computer (the other three observed while I would show one different features).  Afterwards, they were looking up prices at the internet café (which is fairly affordable for the students) so that they could come back on their own time.  I hope they do so often!

Sophie Kim
G.R.O. Volunteer

Posted under Letters from Lesotho, Uncategorized