In partnership with Catholic Relief Services Lesotho, we have been been trying to address the poor quality of childcare centers in Lesotho, where mostly single mothers (who earn less than $70 per month), drop off their babies as young as a 6 weeks, while they work in the textile factories for over 10 hours per day.

Learn more about the problem by watching this brief video produced by CRS.

Through a collaborative participatory design process, we have engaged with over 25 different stakeholders including factories, trade unions, day care opearators, parents, NGO’s, Government and others to try to find solutions including ways in which day care centers can improve their quality of care through low or no cost solutions which you can see here.

In addition we have developed a model day care centre which would act as a resource hub and training centre for other day care centers. The only thing left to do now is to raise the funds needed to build it! Donate here

We are so excited to announce that we have partnered with Possible Dreams Foundation working with 300 community members of the beautiful Ha’ Sekantsi community to build a much needed footbridge over the Likolobeng river. Several people have died trying to cross the river over the years.

Watch this short video to understand why this bridge is so desperately needed by the community.

The bridge will enable year-round access for the children to get to school. At the moment they are at the mercy of the often impassable river and walk 4 hours to get there and back.

The bridge will also allow community members to access essential healthcare services and the market which they rely on in order to earn a living.

The bridge project is possible thanks to funding from J Portelli Projects.

We hope that once the bridge is successfully completed, if we are able to raise enough funds, the next project will be to build a community learning center that will include a pre-school, a night school for the herd-boys as well as an adult education centrer and medical outreach facilities. This will mean that the 43 children of the village can access their right to an education. Many children are not able to go to school as they have to look after the animals in the fields and those that do get there, are often unable to concentrate due to hunger and exhaustion.

An Architecture & Construction Program

in loco: is a live design, build & entrepreneurship training program. The pilot of the first cohort ran from February to December 2018. A cohort of 20 recently graduated Basotho students from local Architecture and Construction Schools participated for the duration of the program.