I taught the students about resume writing during this week’s G.R.O. Leadership Club Meeting (after a fun icebreaker: party style musical chairs – e.g., musical chairs with dancing – which the kids really enjoyed!)

None of the students had heard of resumes until this lesson.  After the students listened to an interview from a Basotho career mentor (a successful accountant) about the importance of a good resume when applying for jobs, I thought it would be good for them to get familiar with the structure of a resume and how to write one.  (I cringe at the memory of my own first resume which was 5 pages long!)  I definitely did not want the G.R.O. scholars to make the same sort of mistake – it’s better for them to get trained on the right way to write a resume earlier than later.

The students hand-wrote a draft of their resumes after receiving a resume writing 101 presentation and looking at a few examples.  It especially helped them to look at past resumes which were written by students at Masianokeng High School during a career guidance camp held by Rice University students this past summer.  They followed along with the format and got a good idea of what constitutes a good resume – as well as solid experience drafting one.  They will hopefully by able to type them out in the Molapo High School computer lab soon (the computers have been nonfunctional for the past few weeks).

Sophie Kim

G.R.O. Volunteer

Posted under Notes from Lesotho

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