Salt Spring Organization for Life Improvement and Development AIDS Africa Twinning NGO

WHO? Peg Herbert and Sister Alice Maputsoe from Project Help Lesotho,
students from GISS and SIMS Global Awareness Groups,
Judy Jackson, filmmaker, along with SOLID members
recently returned from Africa

WHAT? An event to promote twinning relationships
between Salt Spring schools and schools in Lesotho, Southern Africa

WHY? A visionary response to the crisis of HIV-AIDS in Africa,
a way of supporting orphans towards a bright future

MORE INFO? www.helplesotho.ca

Press Release: please feel free to share with media outlets in your community

Lesotho visitors bring stories of courage, hope

Salt Spring Island, B.C. – Salt Spring students are reaching far - to the other side of the globe – to make friends and participate in the struggle against HIV AIDS in Africa. In the wake of Stephen Lewis’ visit to Salt Spring in 2004, students, teachers, and parents have taken up his idea of “twinning” to build bridges between communities. Across Canada, schools, community groups, churches, and medical organizations are forming twinning partnerships with Lesotho, a small mountain kingdom in Southern Africa.
For their part, schools on Salt Spring have been actively engaged in fundraising for Lesotho schools. At GISS, students have collected a room full of school supplies, held dances, and collected recycling revenues. At SIMS, the students held a basketball tournament and a Change for Change drive. The Salt Spring Centre School held a book drive and collected shoes and musical instruments for orphans. All of this energy demonstrates how much this community has to share and how each person can make a difference in the lives of people in Lesotho.
On Tuesday, April 26, Salt Springers will hear from two amazing women who have successfully twinned ten Canadian schools with counterparts in Lesotho. Dr. Peg Herbert, a Canadian educator, and Sister Alice Mputsoe, a Basotho nun and high school principal, are coming to Salt Spring on to share with us their amazing story of hope. Founders of Project Help Lesotho, they work on opposite sides of the planet to bring people together, co-coordinating grassroots projects and providing resources for both communities to develop sustainable relationships.
“I was taken aback and renewed to see the smiling faces of the teachers and students of our 10 twinned schools, “ says Herbert after her recent trip to visit twinned schools in Lesotho. “Each knows his or her pen pal by name and holds to letters dear. It is just so easy to make a difference.” Herbert’s goal is to get children orphaned by AIDS into schools, and through their friendships with Canadian children, provide moral support.
Teachers, students, parents and community members are all warmly invited to meet Peg and Sister Alice at this special event, which will feature music by African drum ensemble “Iroko”, a short film by Judy Jackson, director of the Stephen Lewis film “The Value of Life”, traditional Lesotho handicrafts, and a lush visual presentation. Lesotho, which is also called The Roof of Africa for it’s woven landscape of ancient mountains, is known as the only African nation to effectively resist colonization. Beset with problems from AIDS to unemployment to malnutrition, Lesotho nonetheless is a magical nation of farmers and cob home dwellers, where people greet one another with the blessing, “ Kghotsoe – Peace. “ Among the poorest countries on Earth, Lesotho is also capable of prosperity, as evidence by successful micro-economic projects such as textile cooperatives and small-scale farming initiatives.
In addition to Project Help Lesotho’s presentation, four members from SOLID will be on hand at April 26th’s event to talk about their experiences in Lesotho. In February 2005 a contingent of Salt Spring members of SOLID delivering donated supplies to schools, orphanages, and clinics. The group also worked closely with elementary and secondary schools to build food gardens, providing a source of much needed nutritious food. A project to build a commercial tree nursery at Maputsoe High School in Leribe, Lesotho, has taken off, which will subsidize the school fees of many AIDS orphans and poor children who would otherwise be denied an education. SOLID also worked with a hospital in Leribe staffed by Canadian doctors, who are spearheading an ambitious program to treat 1200 AIDS patients with life saving anti-retroviral drugs. These volunteers have seen first hand what a small amount of energy and funding can do to bring tangible benefits to people daunted by the specter of disease and poverty.
This event promises to launch Salt Spring schools into formal relationships with Lesotho schools. Anyone interested in becoming part of this innovative way of responding to our global AIDS pandemic is invited to attend. For more information, please contact Andrea Palframan at 537-9935 or visit www.solidsaltspring.com.