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A voyage to Lesotho, a chance to meet and listen to some of the loving, giving and proud people in the country coping with the world’s third-highest HIV prevalence, has forged an enduring connection for the Rotary Club of Pemberton Centennial.
After a deeply affecting April trip to volunteer with the SOS Children’s Village facility outside the capital city of Maseru, and learn about people’s needs directly from them, Rotary members Lizz Kelly and Shannon Ellis returned with a list of projects to support citizens in the country devastated by the AIDS epidemic. And the connection has continued, with action still ongoing.
While staying at the SOS Children’s Village and pitching in to help at its facilities and with its Family Strengthening Program, Ellis and Kelly saw how everyone at SOS village had funerals to go to on Saturdays. And they learned quickly not to ask about family members or friends who weren’t present, because too often those people were “gone” – the word used for someone who has died.
“Every weekend there were funerals everywhere, because (AIDS) was just so prevalent,” Kelly said.
The Pembertonians spent time helping at the much-used medical clinic and library in the children’s village compound, and visited nearby communities to deliver quilts and supplies with the Family Strengthening Program, which cares for and supports more than 600 children in the Lithabaneng area who have lost their parents or face serious risks of losses.
During their day spent delivering quilts, Kelly and Ellis learned first-hand about the tragic conditions facing some of the communities, seeing many households full of people battling dire situations. There was the 15-year-old living in a house with three younger siblings – their parents were “gone” – and the family with 16 children living with a very ill grandmother in a tiny space where they had to make lunches on an open fire in the yard.
“It was a very challenging day,” Kelly said soberly.
Ellis noted that some of the children in the families they saw will be rescued from their situations, but some cannot escape the terrible grip of the devastating loss of a generation to the AIDS epidemic. Ellis and Kelly asked about the chances facing a one-month-old baby that lived in the home with 16 children, and received only a shake of the head in reply, she said.
United Nations and World Health Organization statistics estimate that the AIDS epidemic left Lesotho with 110,000 orphans in 2007, up from 37,000 in 2001.
While showing them the truth of the hardships, the trip also introduced the Pemberton Rotary Club members to the affection-craving children in the SOS village who listened to them read stories, shadowed Kelly in yoga and clung to them like lemmings; to the dedicated, practical people like Clementine, a retired Lesotho nurse in charge of the village’s clinic; to the country of contradictions, where citizens wore spotless shirts that would have to be washed along roadsides in garbage-strewn areas.
Most importantly, they heard straight from people in Lesotho what they need for support, including donations of computers and libraries. The visit was “the very start of our time here,” Kelly said, forging connections for future projects.
Kelly and Ellis spent time meeting with people and groups working on a variety of initiatives, some of which they started to pursue through the local Rotary Club once they returned home to Pemberton. Discussions with the Rotary Club of Maloti, which identified a need for “obsolete yet usable” medical equipment for local hospitals, has resulted in a new 2011 Lesotho project for the Rotary Club of Pemberton Centennial.
Last Wednesday (July 14), the club decided to support a project shipping a container of used medical equipment through the Rotary World Health Network to the Maloti Rotary Club.
“We intend to be on the ground in Maseru to meet the container and assist in the distribution of goods. We will also begin the necessary grant writing and fundraising for this project” while seeking partnerships, Kelly wrote in an email.
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