FCL Sites Around the World: Lesotho

Youth facilitators in Mokhotlong, Lesotho travel to schools throughout the region to bring Full-Circle Learning into the classroom. Principals, teachers and students eagerly await their visits. This model seemed the quickest way to get the information out to a large number of students and also to provide jobs for young people who often already head household by their late teens.

The young teachers meet together weekly to plan the lessons they will carry to the schools. In June, when school lets out for the year, the “winter school” begins, and students travel from miles around to attend. This 2009 intersession alone served more than 100 students, who studied the relationship of poverty and natural disaster under the theme of altruism. They learned about heroes from around the world, including the founder of their country, and wrote to global partners about their studies. Through music, art and academics, and with the help of guest presenters from local NGOs, they practiced altruism in their own neighborhood.

Regional director Maureen Mungai adapts Full-Circle Learning curricula in Lesotho. Her projects have influenced the community in a number of ways over the past several years. She has trained Peace Corps workers and other NGOs and has met with the National Curriculum Development Center (NCDC) about integrating FCL model in to the national curriculum. She is now assisting parents in developing their own community-based organization to start new schools in the area. Advisor Kavian Magzhy has consulted on the project.
The work in Mokhotlong began at the request of the Louis Gregory Foundation, whose founder, Kal Basin, offered facilities and partial funding for local projects. Eventually, parents requested a preschool, which soon became an important aspect of community life. A student-made garden which started as a community service project was embraced by the parents, who learned to make it a sustainable development project for the whole community. Collaborating donors helped Louis Gregory bring the Full-Circle Learning projects to Mokhotlong. Foundations such as EHG and the Meridian Foundation participated. Then in mid-2009, due to government plans to build a dam on a portion of the property, parents learned that the preschool would have to close. They exercise initiative, gaining permission from the Education ministry to sponsor their own Full-Circle Learning programs, starting with a preschool called Lerato (Love). Parents, principals and students alike have seen new possibilities for their lives since the project began in 2005.