Projects:
Evaton West Community
Garden Project
Act!
Gardens of Hope*Molapo School * Pitseng School *Linotsing School *Tsepong Clinic*Ha Makhata Group
Molapo High School
Goals
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Permaculture at Molapo High School
| SOLID's first tree planting project involves Molapo High School, where we invested in a tree nursery/shelter for growing trees and vegetable seedlings. The trees are ready for sale and planting by the Ministry of Forests after two months' growth. Each tree sells for $0.20. The funds raised by Molapo High School through the sale of the thousands of tree seedlings they are growing will fund the education of many of the school's hundreds of AIDS orphans, who cannot otherwise pay their school fees. To date, over 4,000 trees have been grown in Molapos' tree nursery. |
In 2006 we built a greenhouse at the school to produce herb and vegetable seedlings. This reduces the capital costs of farming on the school grounds, and allows Molapo to sell seedlings to the community with revenues directly supporting orphaned students’education.
Accomplishments
- Facilitated training and peer-to-peer education resulting in the creation of an HIV-AIDS club at the school.
- Development of a permaculture design for the school, incorporating irrigation, extensive intercropped gardens, orchard, woodlot, and livestock management
- Built tree nursery in 2005; produced 3,000 pine seedlings and 1500 blue gum seedlings for the Ministry of Forests
- Trained (#) students in hands-on agricultural techniques including tree nursery management, soil composition, organic pest control, tree planting, …..
- Built greenhouse in 2006; technical training in greenhouse design and management
- Partnership with four local community-based organizations for skill and resource share
- Designed and painted educational mural focusing on importance of reforestation with agriculture students and faculty
Natural Resources
Leadership
- Moses Paulo , headmaster, is a strong and dynamic leader. Through the recruitment of quality teachers, overseas volunteers, and generating investment by NGO’s, Paulo has been able to involve strong stakeholders in his school. Moses sees the value in vocational training, and to this end supports agricultural initives as part of the curriculum.
- Gregory Felsen is a US Peace Corps volunteer who is stationed at Molapo High School as a permaculture advisor and teacher. He has created a design for sustainably farming the land belonging to the school.
Human Resources/ Stakeholders
- Gregory has hired a full-time farm manager, who he is training as his successor. There is a core group of three to five volunteers who come every day, to work in the gardens and tend the nursery trees, along with groups of 30-40 students who work on the farm as part of the agriculture curriculum.
- Project Help Lesotho: Molapo is twinned with Viking High School in Alberta, Canada. Support 12 orphan students by giving room, board, and paying school fees.
- Wales Lesotho Link : Sends volunteer teachers for 6 month teaching posts.
- US Peace Corps stations volunteers at Molapo for 2 year posts. Now that the school has (donated by School Net: Internet access and a computer lab with 12 computers
- SOLID : In 2005 SOLID built a tree nursery at Molapo that now produces 1,000 trees per quarter for re-sale to the Ministry of Forest. In 2006 SOLID built a greenhouse for the production of seedlings for the school’s gardens and for resale in the community. Initiatives to education students and staff about the value of reforestation include workshops (see Appendix B), and the painting of a mural about the benefits of trees.
HIV-AIDS Support
