Summit 2017-Tenesolo Council COE

The Tenesolo community council is about 80 kilometers north of Thaba-Tseka town. The council is the 4th council to join COE in the district of Thaba-Tseka.The coucil is also part of the 10th councils doing the entrepreneurship programme.

There council has Gender Champion who has been nominated at the Council to focus in the issues of gender based violence. The council also has recruitment Policy. There are 23 councillors; 39% are women and both the chairperson and deputy are male. Within the three committees that council has two are chaired by women.

All sectors of the community participate in the decision-making through public gatherings and between 20%-50% are women. The council keeps gender disaggregated data; For instance, the registered people for the projects are recorded by gender such as land reclamation lists; births and national IDs; road construction

Of the total workforce, the council has 33% women, which 30% are youth, 3% people living with the disability. The council secretary is a man and Assistant administration officer is woman. The head of the Planning and Finance is also a woman.

The council provide maternity and nursing hours. For example, for someone who is breastfeeding, one gets to work at 9:00am and leaves at 3:00pm. Also as provided for in the Labour Code of Lesotho all staff members are awarded leave on issues of health as well as compassionate leave to attend the funeral of close relatives.

The council is accessible to people and people living with the disability as there trails of wheelchairs on entrance.

Tenesolo Community Council allocated budget to gender-related projects for 2017 to 2018.

In terms of local economic development the Council has 12 market stalls out of which nine are occupied by women. There is existence of entrepreneurship schemes where the Council does not have such schemes but such schemes are the initiatives of the SILC groups under Caritas Lesotho to help communities.

As arrangements made by council with external sources of finance to promote access to finance for local entrepreneurs, especially women, PWD and the youth the group of women have been trained on business skills with the help of Gender links. Again, as a form of increasing access to finances, the Council has opened access to women to operate or run the public toilets where they get a share of 70% on the total revenue for the month.

The council has a waste management project that employs both men and women equally which started in October 2017; again land reclamation project of the Ministry of Forestry has offered both men and women the opportunity to work and gain income.

The council also has a climate change plan formulated with help of Serumula Development Association.

The council does not allocate houses but land – and data on land allocation is mainly registered as males although Land Act 2010 allows anyone to acquire land.

Each electoral division has water committees in each village responsible for maintenance and control. There are public water taps and public toilets and toilets to each households

Water committees are represented by both men and women.

The council works with the hospital to promote SRHR. This is done through the reports submitted to the council by village health workers.

The Council works with the Police with regard revival of the CPFs in ending violence. Currently the Police is organising “operation basali” where the Police engages in educating communities to report the cases of GBV to the Police.

Click here to read more about the Tenesolo Community Council.