Summary
The Malealea Development Trust from Lesotho is dedicated to improving the lives of the local community by promoting education, health, orphans support, addressing gender-based violence and environmental issues, to uplift the community and empower its people. After trying unsuccessfully to raise funds for a computer lab, MDT dispatched two staff members to a local fundraising training organised by South African Change the Game Academy partner Rhiza Babuyile. Having completed the training and applying what they learned, they managed to secure all the necessities for a computer lab fairly quickly.
Tips and lessons learned
The local fundraising course proved to us that support comes in many forms, not just financial contributions, and also to never underestimate the funding possibilities that lie within our reach. Special thanks to Wilde Ganzen, Rhiza Babuyile and Change the Game Academy for supporting us through this course.
Review by Wilde Ganzen Foundation
This is a real success story. MDT has existed since 2002 and has already achieved a lot, if they see the need to connect their village to the digital world, also to give children the chance of a bright future. Initially, they fail to raise the important amount that is necessary for the equipment of a computer lab. But after training in local fundraising, they succeeded, mainly because they learned that you should not only seek cash donations, but that goods in kind and volunteers giving their time are also invaluable.
Details
Short description of the organisation the funds were raised for
The Malealea Development Trust (MDT) is a community run non-profit that strives to address the health, educational and environmental challenges faced by the Malealea community.
Our first area of focus is Health and Well-Being, focusing primarily on supporting the HIV+ members of our community in a holistic manner. Today, about a quarter of our population is HIV+, and while they have access to the antiretroviral (ARV) medication, living positively with HIV entails much more than mere access to medication. We play an active role in our community fighting stigma, getting people tested, ensuring that they have enough food to take with their medication, helping them to follow their specific drug regimens, and much more.
The HIV crisis reached its apex in Lesotho in the 1990s and early 2000s. The first ARV clinic was not opened until 2004, and even then it took years for the proper materials and training to make it into the mountains. These factors led to alarmingly high mortality and a devastating number of children losing one or both of their parents. Our second key area of focus is caring for these Orphaned and Vulnerable Children, who have not only suffered the severe emotional trauma of losing a parent but whose futures have also been put at risk by an epidemic outside of their control. We have a social care worker who monitors their home and academic lives and we have a scholarship fund to send them to school. We also stage events throughout the year to support their emotional and intellectual development. There are also children living with disability in our community who we both advocate for and financially support.
Education is our third area of focus. Students are dropping out of our schools at alarming rates. They are overcrowded, underfunded, under-supplied, and under-regulated. We build and refurbish classrooms to reduce overcrowding and improve the learning environment. We also provide services to supplement our students’ learning, like our computer training program and our children’s library programme.
Many of the children who should be students instead must make time to assist their families make their subsistence living. The subsistence lifestyle is harmful for many reasons: lack of safety net in case of poor yields, lack of opportunity to improve one’s situation, and inability to effectively respond to crises, among countless others. Our fourth area of focus is Community Development. These projects are designed to improve the productivity of our people to help them generate income in a sustainable way and improve their quality of life.
Summary of fundraising action
After a long struggle of getting funding to strengthen our digital literacy programme, the MDT decided to embark on a journey of local fundraising in which 2 staff members got a local fundraising course training and later were able to source locally a donation of a fully furnished computer centre with 20 desktops and 200GB of data on a monthly basis, electricity and solar panels, chairs and tables. The value of the funding, all in kind donations, adds up to LSL 1,800,000.00. The donation was made by Vodacom Lesotho Foundation, the charity arm of Vodacom Lesotho. The Foundation mandated to invest in critical areas of development, in line with the Government of Lesotho's national strategic development plan. It supports sustainable initiatives that drive social change, improve people's lives and solve pressing social needs.
Targeted donors
Vodacom Lesotho Foundation
Results
| Cost/benefit |
National currency (LSL |
Euro |
| Total amount raised |
1,800,000 |
92,075 |
| (-) Total amount invested |
0 |
0 |
| Net amount raised |
1,800,000 |
92,075 |
Result comments
The computer centre has become a hub of knowledge, innovation, and empowerment. People of Malealea are now exposed to the digital era, learning computer skills, exploring the internet, and connecting with the world beyond their valley. Moreover, individuals with various skills and expertise came forward to offer their time and knowledge to volunteer as computer trainers/ mentors.
Plans to repeat the action
Following our successful funding of the computer laboratory, we are continuing to raise funds locally and it works very well for us. At the moment we are working with the community members to repair the gravel road here in Malealea valley which has made the movement difficult for the people in the community for almost 2 years. It was through our local fundraising that we got the support from the local businesses to repair this road.
