The G.R.O Foundation offers us the unique opportunity to not only engage in our own communities, but to create awareness about the situation in Lesotho. Through The G.R.O Foundation, we are working to provide educational opportunities for the next leaders of Lesotho, the business opportunities to establish strong economic infrastructure and resources for communities.

We at The G.R.O Foundation want to encourage you to communicate through the ways you feel can make the greatest awareness impact. We can help you with resources such as literature, photos, videos, personal stories, music, crafts, poetry, ideas, and non judgmental support in helping you organize a meeting, event, party or function to spread awareness for the Basotho people.

Join us in changing the future of Lesotho.

• Raise awareness in your community – hold an event, a party for a purpose or talk with your friends over coffee.
• Engage. Volunteer – in your community or with The G.R.O. Foundation. Get out there.
• Join our online community- connect with others – share ideas – pass the message.
• Mobilize. Come together. Work for a better future for the world.

Greg Felsen

Posted under The Movement

I wanted to start The G.R.O Foundation to let the people of Lesotho accomplish realistic goals in their own lives.  While working in the developing world, I found it so important for long term success to give the majority of responsibility and creative control of projects to the actual people in these countries, as they know how to best run the projects.  When we established The GRO Foundation we purposefully sought to set it up to enable committed groups of people the ability to make a positive change in their own communities.  We focus on providing resources and support when needed that they could not have obtained due to their economic or social situation.  By focusing on community led development you assist communities in strengthening from the ground up…this is the vision of The G.R.O. Foundation.

By Greg Felsen

Posted under The Vision

Greg Felsen

Khotsong! Peace to All.  My name is Greg Felsen and I am a founding member of the G.R.O Foundation. From August 2005 through December of 2007, I was living and working at Molapo High School in Leribe, Lesotho. My primary focus at Molapo High School was on establishing a strong infrastructure for sustainable agriculture projects that could generate income to support orphaned and vulnerable children. During this time, seeing the great need for support of many Lesotho youth, I teamed up with James White (a pediatric HIV nurse) and Jean Margaritis (a community advocate) to form The GRO Foundation.  Our first project, The Family Scholarship Fund was created to assist high school level students at Molapo High School. We didn’t want to be another program that simply gave funds. We sought to create a student family that supported each other and learned together in a lifelong and meaningful way. We established a program that incorporates teacher mentoring and peer tutoring as a central aspect. The students meet on a regular basis to discuss educational issues but also personal issues that they are facing.

The greatest moments I saw of the program becoming a family were when the students themselves started organizing support for each other relating to tutoring support from older students to younger ones and peer support when gathering for funerals in support of a student’s personal loss at home. In addition, I was moved when we would have the end of the year BBQ (Braii) and see all the family come together to cook and clean and just plain dance and have fun.  It was truly inspirational. I took a great interest in helping the other G.R.O related projects get off the ground and am committed to making them a success.  I look forward to sharing more stories about the students and the work that The G.R.O Foundation is doing in Lesotho.  There is so much potential and we hope to make an impact in creating a healthier world. Until then much love.

Posted under The Mission