Lesotho:Tsatsimpone Ranteme

Boithatelo Healthy Youth Organization empowering young women and youth with life skills and leadership skills

It was started on the 1^st August 2014 with the aim of empowering young women and youth with life skills and leadership skills. It was formed by 10 women and 2 boys who were trained by Peace Corps Lesotho through community councillor.

The objectives of the organization are to empower young women and youth with life skills and knowledge, by giving support on their education. If young people are educated, especially girls, they have an opportunity to conquer the world, they will know their rights, they will also perform jobs with their acquired skills and taking care of themselves without being burdens on anybody, furthermore, the project is making sure that it changes young girls from old woman mentality that women cannot do some other things. It is also helping orphans and vulnerable children with food, school uniform and shoes. In addition, it assists people living with HIV/AIDS with information and some trainings about good hygiene.

There are 30 women who benefited directly and 10 men. On the other hand ,10 and 5 women and men respectively, are benefited indirectly.

There were 120,000 and 65,000 allocated for this project (American Embassy). This was specifically for the construction of community library and fitting it inside as well as the equipment needed for it to be a finished product. This is a life support on youth education

Project monitoring and evaluation, the organization is hosting the weekly meetings and outline the success or the challenges of the set project. Firstly, it set a goal and give it a time frame depending on a type of a project we are doing. It ensured that the projects are meeting the expectations by attending the site where the project is taking place on a daily basis. Women are now confident enough to be leaders at any community forums and those communities are supporting the projects and understand the importance of working together. The products are posted on Facebook and responses are very impressive. On top of that, women are now encouraging one another in leadership as well as in participation therefore women are now seen in leaderships from different organisations, even though their percentage is still low.

People are now motivated and empowered about women’s work in the villages and they have change their attitudes towards women as they used to say they are weak.

Some of the members drop out in the middle of the project, so they had to recruit other people to join because there were set goals to achieve as the method of trying to overcome the faced challenges. One other thing it was to understand each other as well as supporting one another, meaning to have team work.

There is a library that was constructed for youth where boys, girls and pre-school children are all catered and they are all active using it, this is also creating interests in their studies. In fact, the whole community is benefiting directly and indirectly. Another huge impact brought in the community level is that the community leaders are fully taking part in many activities that are involved in the projects.

The project replicated adequately when all members are fully participating and sharing skills and knowledge to the new members. Hosting regular meetings to rectify the mistakes and  

through sharing of skills, information and knowledge.