Check out our Spring 2009 newsletter.  You can find it here.

Posted under The Vision

The schools are still on break for the summer holidays.  January starts the new academic year so it’s back-to-school season for everyone.  Pre-schoolers are trying on their very first backpack, elementary students struggle to fit into their older siblings old uniforms, junior highers nervously await their first day at a new school, and high schoolers begin to stress about their senior examinations.   Schools are supposed to begin their first term next Monday (January 19) but schools here never really start on time.  The first week is for paying school fees, finding old school books, being sent home for inappropriate uniforms or waiting for teachers to arrive from their own homes in the mountains.  The first week is always a bit chaotic but I am glad our students in The Family Scholarship Fund don’t need to worry about paying their school, book or examination fees.  In the disorganized first week of school, they can just sit back, relax and catch up with friends.  Though when classes finally begin, our students work hard.  They participate in career guidance sessions, LifeSkills classes, extra academic tutorials and many are participants in the Drama and HIV/AIDS clubs.

Thanks to all of your support last year, we are now able to add an additional five students to The Family Scholarship Fund.  We’ll be accepting the new students next week. G.R.O. goes to great care to select our students.  First, students are identified who demonstrate excellence in the classroom but would be unable to attend school due to financial hardships.  Students who have lost both parents (double orphans) in Lesotho are sponsored by the government whereas students who have lost one parent (single orphans) are considered for the scholarship.  Other students who are able to demonstrate significant hardship are also given consideration.  Once the teachers have identified students, the students submit a written application along with a letter from their chief verifying their home life situation.  Our academic advisors then conduct a home visit to meet family or relatives.  Their completed applications are submitted to the principal for approval before the selection committee officially nominates them for the scholarship.

I’ve been phoned by about 15 different people informing me that the Form C (Grade 10) Junior Certificate exam results were released this week in the national papers.  Everyone was very excited as four of our Scholarship students took the exam this year and we are very pleased that all four passed!  Thakisi, Kefuoe, Likano and Marahaba are now able to enter Form D this year.  Congratulations!

We are still awaiting the Form E (Grade 12) results which will be released at the end of this month.  Three of our students took this senior level exam – we are keeping our fingers crossed for Matseliso, Tsepo and Marosa!

Students play games at the end of year party

Until next week, sala hantle (stay well) and thank you for your ongoing support.

Posted under Letters from Lesotho

A note from Lebohang Morai

My father passed away in 2000 and my mother can’t find work.   So this scholarship is a gift.  My goals are to listen carefully and perform well academically. I am planning on furthering my studies at the University.  I am planning to do my assignments, attend classes, read and ask questions where I do not understand so my chances of success could be very high.

When I look ahead in my future in five to ten years, I see myself as a successful young lady who has a degree or a higher qualification in Nursing or any other health-related field.

Posted under The Mission

It’s summer here in Lesotho and it’s hot. The rooster wakes up with the morning sun at 4:30 a.m. and all local activity begins. The mountain foothills are green and the maize fields indicate a bountiful harvest come fall. The thunderstorms that come almost every night shake the house and cut out the electricity. Mornings are busy but things slow down in the afternoon as the blanket of heat steers people under shaded trees. I’m happy it’s summer – everything is so alive.

The Maluti Mountains of Lesotho

Back in Lesotho for only a few days now, I’ve already had the chance to meet with many of our G.R.O. project members and leaders. It was great to re-connect with our projects and I was so pleased to see that they have all strengthened and grown within 2008. They are excited for all that can be done in 2009 and they send their thanks for all of your support this year. Thanks to those of you who contributed where you could, or participated in the Scholarship Challenge and Gifts of Hope campaign, The G.R.O. Foundation will be able to further expand its projects and support more people in Leribe, Lesotho.

The Family Scholarship Fund
The students of the Family Scholarship Fund at Molapo High School are enjoying their summer holidays and the end of the 2008 academic year. Three of our students have completed their final year and have just taken their graduation test. We are awaiting their results which will come in February as the results of their exams will determine which post-secondary schools they can attend. Tsepo aims to study tourism and Marosa and Maseliso are interested in a variety of disciplines. We delivered their Holiday Food Baskets at our annual end-of-year Braii (BBQ) and everyone is very excited to start the new academic year in January.
Our peer educators and academic advisors are busy preparing their teaching plans for 2009 and we look forward to welcoming new students as well in January.

Family Scholarship graduate Tsepo speaks about his experience at Machebang College to other scholarship students at Molapo at the 2008 end-of-year party.

The Grandmothers Support Group of Leribe
‘Me Mapalesa, a retired nurse clinician, runs the Grandmothers Support Group of Leribe. The Grandmothers group has two main projects: home-based care and community support through a poultry project. Home-based care is an incredibly important part in combating the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Even with the awareness campaigns and available treatment, the shame and fear HIV patients feel keeps them hidden in their houses – usually dying alone without any care or comfort. The Grandmothers Support Group works with the local chief to visit patients at home and help them get the health care they need. We delivered multivitamins, pain medications and kids vitamins to restock their Home Care kits.

The Grandmothers Group also started a poultry project in 2008. The Grandmothers raise broiler chickens and sell them locally. The Grandmothers also give the chickens to orphans and patients in the community and use the profits to provide for the needy in the community. Each member of the Grandmothers contributed funds to provide the start-up for this project while The G.R.O. Foundation matched their contributions. Because of your support, they have a brand new poultry house which can house over 300 chickens and within 2009 aim to build at least 4 more chicken houses to expand their project.

Thuli’s Jewelry Handicraft Cooperative
The Handicraft Cooperative is going really well. There has been a lot of interest generated both in North America and in Lesotho. The women are working hard and currently we are looking at solidifying our local systems and working to expand our international market. This project has so much potential and I look forward to working with the women to help it grow next year. We’ve started putting together the Thuli’s Jewelry starter kits and I can’t wait to start delivering them to the new cooperative members.

It’s great to be back – I’m happy its summer – and I look forward to keeping you all posted on the work we are doing in Lesotho. Keep an eye on our website and blog for future developments and updates!

Jean - G.R.O. Co-Director

Posted under The Mission

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

I have worked for the past two summers in Lesotho as both a teacher and public health intern. Throughout my time there, I was able to have many conversations with youth about their dreams and hopes for the future. In particular, I remember one of my first days in Lesotho where I had the chance to travel to a remote village with a physician from the pediatric AIDS clinic where I worked. The physician was going to the village to give medical records back to the family of a young girl who had died of tuberculosis.  The doctor and a social worker then proceeded to test the siblings, the grandmother, and stepmother all for HIV.  Thankfully, their tests all came out negative.  Many people came from around the community to be tested too once they heard that someone from our clinic was there.  We hung out with the children of the village afterwards and spoke with two of them who were about 12 years-old.  They were in their last year of primary school. They said they want to be nurses when they grow up, but then we also found out that their families did not have enough money to send them to high school (only primary education is covered by the government of Lesotho).  Without a high school education, there was no way that these children could fulfill their dream of becoming nurses.  I was deeply saddened by this and wanted desperately to find a way to get these girls to high school. And I regretted ever having taken my own opportunities for granted.

These youth and thousands of others like them have been on my mind for the past few years and I have thought about how much a scholarship fund could do to help fulfill the promise of Basotho youth. I am so thankful for the new G.R.O. Foundation Scholarship Challenge and for the Gifts of Hope campaign. There is a dire need for funds to pay for such things as school fees, books, and computer literacy training. Giving through the G.R.O. Foundation initiatives will allow so many Basotho children that are full of potential reach their goals of moving beyond poverty and becoming what they once could only dream of.

Basotho children are wonderfully creative and talented. Day to day you can see interesting contraptions that they make to play. Anything from cars made out of wire, to instruments, to their own modes of transportation. As a teacher, I also always found my students so eager to learn. And if given an opportunity to flourish with an education, they will surely thrive.

By Sophie Kim, G.R.O. Volunteer

Posted under The Movement

Working and living in the community of Leribe I met so many people who were committed to improving their lives.  I worked with students selling apples trying to make enough money for school fees, women struggling to feed and support their families with no income, and grandmothers overwhelmed by the burden of caring for their orphaned grandchildren.  Seeing this first-hand and knowing that with just a little bit of support and encouragement, these committed people could have the opportunity to change their lives for the better.  Working with James, Greg and the community members, The G.R.O. Foundation was borne.  The G.R.O. Foundation is a vehicle, an opportunity and the hope for the Basotho people which supports local solutions to local problems.

One of the most unique things about The G.R.O. Foundation is that the Basotho people have ownership of the projects – the projects have been selected by our local project leaders as projects that are beneficial to their community.  I see my role as supporting our local project participants and they manage and expand their projects, providing advice and guidance to build their capacity.

By Jean Margaritis

Posted under The Vision

In a country like Lesotho there is no shortage of talent, commitment, passion or belief. There is a distinct lack of resource, the funds and capacity needed to put plan into action, inspiration into actuality.  During my time at Tsepong clinic in 2005-2006 I met so many people in our community that were in need of support, that had dreams of a better life but no real opportunity to achieve them.  I spoke to so many students, mothers, grandmothers and community leaders about the concept of hope – about that unexplainable quality that makes some people bravely face incredible obstacle.

Life in Lesotho is not easy.  Despite the incredible ability and inner strength of so many of the people I met, the realities of extreme poverty and the ravages of the AIDS pandemic make even the simplest of dreams an incredibe struggle.  The vision of The G.R.O. Foundation was and is to connect these inspirational people to the resources and support that they need in order to make their dreams a reality.

In Lesotho, The G.R.O. Foundation has been incorporated as a non-profit organization where committed community groups and individuals can work together co-operatively to ensure that their separate projects succeed.  They can share resources, ideas and talents in order to support each other and benefit the community as a whole.  We have sought to ensure that project ownership in Lesotho is, and always will be, locally controlled, locally organized, and locally led.

The G.R.O. Foundation in Canada seeks to support the work in Lesotho by procuring the funds needed for project work, but more importantly by creating a movement of committed individuals that will increase awareness and advocacy about the situation in Lesotho.  Since I returned from Lesotho in 2006 I have been inspired to see a shift in the mentality of ordinary people in Canada.  People are finally beginning to see the realities of global poverty, AIDS, injustice and genocide.  They are starting to ask the right questions, most commonly “What can I do to support these people?”.  The vision of The G.R.O. Foundation in Canada is to give these individuals, committed to engaging in the developing world, an outlet for their inspiration, beliefs and passion for change.  One individual, when given the opportunity, can absolutely impact the lives of our global brothers and sisters in crisis.  We are seeking to provide an opportunity for that partnership to flourish, for people in North America to directly and significantly impact positive global change through simple acts and collective endeavors.

Social change has always been driven by small, committed groups of individuals - and our hope is that with every person that joins the G.R.O. movement we can provide more substantial support to our project partners in all parts of the world.

Posted under The Vision

It’s never been easiser.

The G.R.O. Foundation is excited to launch it’s 2008 Gifts of Hope campaign. Check it out at www.grofoundation.org.

This year, honor your mother, your brother, and your best friend by giving them a gift of hope.  Instead of giving your mom that yellow scarf you’re not sure she’ll like, how about sending an African student to school in her name instead?  What if you gave an unemployed woman in Africa a chance a starting her own business and put your sister’s name on it?   Or give chickens to grandmothers for that person you have no idea how to buy for.  Check it out. This year - go with something unique - go with something special - and go with something that keeps on giving.  This year, give hope.

Visit our new secure, online shopping cart.  View the .pdf version here. Happy shopping!

Posted under The Movement

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