Upon completion of his Peace Corps service, co-founder of G.R.O. Foundation Lesotho, Greg Felson started C02SLASHERS, a unique company that sells re-usable take-away containers called ‘ECO BOXES’.  CO2Slashers is dedicated to operating on a quadruple bottom line, which measures not just the financial bottom line, but also the environmental, health and social bottom line.  The company has committed to a $2.00 donation for every ECO-BOX sold as part of G.R.O.’s Gifts of Hope campaign.

Visit CO2SLASHERS to learn more and purchase your own ECO BOX.

Posted under Uncategorized

Many families struggle to survive the harsh Lesotho winters that produce temperatures below freezing and snowfall. Corrugated tin housing, few heating sources, and a shortage of winter crops create survival challenges for Lesotho families. Your gift of a Family Winter Survival Kit will help provide a family in desperate need with paraffin for heating, winter blankets, and staple foods to help endure the winter months.
Give this gift

Posted under Uncategorized

In Lesotho, with an overwhelming rate of HIV infection, death of parents is far too common. Many orphans are raised by grandparents who struggle to provide basic necessities, such as food, clothing and education. G.R.O.’s Orphan Crisis Kits are specially tailored to meet a growing child`s needs and are distributed by a support group of local grandmothers. Your gift will help provide a kit that includes essentials like winter clothing, food staples, paraffin for heating and cooking, school uniforms and shoes.  Give this gift.

Posted under The Movement

The World Food Program states that 56% of the population in Lesotho lives on less than $2/day. Students coming from vulnerable homes are often forced to survive on the one meal a day provided at school. Your gift of a family food basket can provide a student and his or her family with a holiday food basket through our local partnership with Anwary’s Supermarket in Hlotse-Leribe. One basket can provide a family with a two month supply of food, every bit of which provides the energy for families to focus on school, work and the holidays.  Give this gift.

Posted under The Movement

Many of the women in Lesotho suffer from HIV and seek ways to both support their treatment and provide for their families. In 2009, The G.R.O. Artisans Collective was formed in Hlotse-Leribe, Lesotho to provide HIV positive mothers with an opportunity to make a living in jewelery design and sales. Your gift of an artisan`s start-up kit includes everything needed to help a woman to start making jewelry - tools, beads, supplies, and business training with the collective. The Artisans Collective offers fair wages along with critical health care and family support benefits for its workers. Give this gift.

Posted under The Movement

Things are not the same. In Lesotho, the act of taking public transport is quite easy to engage in and I believe it to be the epitome of organized chaos. All you need to do is inquire where to find the transport to your desired location and someone will kindly point you to another person who will continue to point you in a direction until you have found the vehicle that will take you where you wish to go. You find a seat and you find your patience. To take public or transport, you refer to one or the other but rarely both, there is a necessary delay, a necessary waiting, and a necessary uncertainty.

“When are we leaving?” One might ask.

“We will leave when we are full,” will be the response.

“Do you know when that might be? I am expected somewhere,” you will say trying to plead your case.

“Yes, when we are full.”

There are benefits to waiting or being first. You get a better seat. There are drawbacks to waiting or being first in the form of the heat of the sun. Thankfully, Lesotho is a relatively windy country and a slightly cracked window will offer you some respite from the air hanging between yourself and the others all waiting in the combi-minibus. You are waiting for the others to join you. You are all in it together. There is a meeting set, in a sense, but you simply cannot know when and with whom this meeting will take place. When it finally does everyone will agree that the time has come and together you will move forward. If music has not been playing while you wait then it will begin now. Gospel, Hip Hop, Traditional, or Top 40, likely combined on a heavily scratched CD, will begin pulsing out of a set of speakers. The volume will be unnecessarily high. This does not stop the passengers from interacting. Voices rise above the music. There is little way to dissipate the sound, as the song will deflect off of the closed windows to reach you from an unexpected angle. Basotho do not like to drive with the windows open, no matter the temperature, due to fear of catching cold from the wind and their general discomfort when feeling the rapid air against their skin. This practice has only helped to increase the transmission of tuberculosis throughout the rural and camp town populations. A game I have taken to playing is to gain a seat by the window and crack it before the combi is full. When you begin moving you ensure that your arm is firmly planted in a manner that prevents anyone from reaching across you and quietly closing the window. The game is to see how long you can keep the window open before someone asks you to close it. At that point you change tack and the mission becomes to what degree to you accommodate the request without actually cutting off the source of fresh air.

The combi-minibus is an extended commuter van that typically seats between 9 and 12 passengers. When full they typically carry between 12 and 15 passengers. The windshield may be cracked and the door handles will most likely be inoperable from either the inside or the outside of the vehicle, possibly both simultaneously. You will rely on each other to control the movements in and out of the vehicle. Along the way you will pass and be passed. Uncertain sudden roadside stops will be enacted and feverish honking to signal to potential clients will be engaged in. The driver will skirt around people and livestock that are invariably traveling along or across the same paved pathway that you find yourself on. The rules of the road are far less defined here.

You pay the fair not upon boarding or upon leaving, but somewhere in the middle. If you are in the back you pass your money to the person in front and they will then continue to pass it along. Your change, if there is need for any, will return to you in the same manner.

Together you are sechaba, a community. The group has waited for you as you may have waited for the others. You can only begin once you have all arrived and slowly you will lose members to the side of the road at one point or another as you work together to open and close the door.

Jason Clark

jclark@grofoundation.org

www.twitter.com/GROjasonclark

Posted under Notes from Lesotho

The AIDS pandemic in Lesotho has left many grandmothers caring for orphaned grandchildren and sick relatives. Your gift can provide an industrious Grandmothers` Support Group in Hlotse-Leribe with basic first aid supplies, vitamins and other necessities to provide better care for families in their communities. Many grandmothers in the support group are retired nurses and already provide a tremendous amount of community support. They just need additional basic supplies that will help extend the reach and breadth of their care.  Give this gift.

Posted under The Movement

100% of donated funds for the Grandmothers` Support Group, the G.R.O. Artisans Collective, and the Family Scholarship Fund are spent directly on those Lesotho-based projects. However, the Canadian team also requires support to scale-up our advocacy, fundraising and awareness activities here in Canada. By engaging Canadians, we can spread the message about global development issues and what can be done to relieve poverty. A gift to the Canadian GROwth fund will allow us to expand our Canadian operations as we seek to establish a permanent Toronto office, extend our campaigns across Canada, and maintain our administrative and operational needs. Give this gift.

Posted under The Movement

It actually felt like Christmas today. The excitement that is, even with the notion as far from my mind as it is on a typical March morning. The geography of the whole event is staggering enough, as I am life times away from my family and many friends. But, pushing an oversized cart through the aisles of Metro here in Hlotse I was smiling excitedly as we gathered the staple items for the Christmas Hamper baskets for distribution to the 17 students in the Family Scholarship Fund at Molopo High School.

Earlier in the day we had ordered a chicken for each student, from the Grannies Poultry Project, to compliment the basics Jean and I were collecting. The pile grew to include the staples of Basotho cuisine such as flour, sugar, oil, rice, yeast, tea, soup, beans, and porridge; but also soya mince, tuna, and peanut butter for protein; granola for energy, as well as some chocolate to celebrate with. Our carts brimmed with candles and matches, toothbrushes and toothpaste, shower soap and laundry powder, deodorant and toilet paper, and the bags to carry it all in.

My place was instantly turned into a small distribution warehouse as plastic and cardboard littered the floor along with the debris of beans and brown sugar, as big box packaging shed its layers. After an extensive sorting and clean-up process the room revealed the 9 black plaid packages for the male students and the 8 blue plaid packages for the female students. For me, it came with ribbons! It came with tags! It came with packages, boxes, and bags! With your help the students of the Family Scholarship Fund are receiving a holiday that means something more. Thank you to all of the donors that made the Hamper baskets a possibility for the students of Molopo High School this Christmas.

Jason Clark

G.R.O. Lesotho Volunteer Business Advisor

jclark@grofoundation.org

www.twitter.com/GROjasonclark

Posted under Notes from Lesotho

G.R.O. relies on our local executive Board in Lesotho for valuable insight to guide our community projects and strategic planning. A strong local board in Lesotho is central to the sustainability and success of our projects. The Business and Project Development Seminar fund ensures that board members receive necessary training in governance, project management, bookkeeping and human resources management. Your gift of $50 can cover the costs of a business and project development seminar for the local executive board. Give this gift.

Posted under The Movement