Working to foster a community of young people in Lesotho who are skilled, inspired, motivated and socially conscious.
The Hub is running a fundraising campaign during this holiday season.
Help us to continue to change the lives of young people in Morija! Please consider donating to our cause, or help us to spread the word!
Follow this link to the fundraising page: https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/support-the-hub-in-morija-lesotho–8/x/3928009
From November 21 – December 14, The Hub’s film crew took part in a successful 3.5 week collaboration/camp with students from Haute école d’art et de design – Genève (HEAD/Geneva University of Art & Design).
The camp ended with a screening of films produced by The Hub’s film crew, students from HEAD and Sesotho Media & Development at Mophato oa Morija Conference Centre. The films explored a range of personal, artistic and sociopolitical issues.
The growth in The Hub’s young film makers was tremendous, and we believe that this is just the beginning for them. We’re proud of the hard work they put in, and the commitment they showed. The experience left The Hub’s film crew inspired to pursue new projects in 2018, and we look forward to seeing their work.
We are incredibly grateful to HEAD, Teboho Edkins and Sesotho Media and Development for the opportunity! Thanks also to Glasswaters Foundation for their support of the activities.
The films produced will be on HEAD’s website early next year.
86% of women in Lesotho have experienced some form of gender based violence (Gender Links, 2015).
Today The Hub is taking part in the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women by launching a video produced by our students for #16 days of activism against gender based violence (GBV).
“We cannot achieve gender equality in Lesotho when the country’s rates of GBV are so high. Our study found that many women do not report incidences of GBV because in our culture, a woman is not expected to talk about what happens in the home. If a woman is beaten by her husband, she is not expected to speak about it in public. It is seen as a private matter.” – ‘Manteboheleng Mabetha, Gender Links Lesotho
Special thanks to Inside Out Media for providing us with the Macbook Pro and Creative Suite we use for editing, and to Selibeng sa Thuto Trust for the large monitor. Thanks also to Patronella Diedricks and Henri Marbacher for their tips on how to make improvements to the video.
From November 14-17, The Hub was invited by Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) to take part in the Young Leaders Forum, hosted by Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Forum is a platform for youth from East African Community Countries to learn, network and share experiences.
When OSIEA put out the call for applications for youth to attend the Forum, they received 2,000 applications with only 100 spots available. As representatives of Lesotho under OSISA, we felt extremely privileged to be in the presence of 100 + brilliant young leaders, thinkers, inventors and change makers.
The Forum had an incredible list of featured speakers. Some of them include:
Hon. Anthony Mavunde, Deputy Minister of Labour, Employment and Youth of Tanzania. His ministry has recently signed an MoU to set aside land specifically for youth. These areas will be known as ‘Youth Special Economic Zone for Economic Activities’.
Gwamaka Kifukwe, who currently works with the Institute of African Leadership for Sustainable Development (Uongozi Institute), a public institution whose mission is to equip and inspire current and future African leaders in public, private, and civic society to live up to their individual and collective potential and deliver sustainable solutions to the challenges facing Africa.
Mr. Kifukwe’s session was on the role of young people and the Africa we want. The Africa we want has been best described by Agenda 2063 of the African Union, a strategic framework for the socio-economic transformation of the continent over the next 50 years. It builds on and seeks to accelerate the implementation of continental initiatives for growth and development. Among its seven aspirations, the framework envisions Africa whose development is people driven, driven by the potential offered by people, especially its women and youth. Over 60% of the 1.3 billion African population being youth below 30 years old, questions remain; is the continent doing enough to harness such a “demographic dividend?”? Do African governments equip its youth to address current and impeding challenges? What kind of investment is Africa making on its youth population? Is it enough?
Adebola Williams is a Nigerian media entrepreneur, journalist, and political activist and motivational speaker. Williams is also the co-founder of media group, RED and CEO of its companies Red Media Africa and StateCraft Inc. He recently spoke in the closing session themed “Collective Power” at the Obama Foundation Summit and earned a standing ovation from the crowd, including Barack Obama after his speech. Follow this link for best moments from his speech at the Obama Foundation Summit on CNN’s website: https://goo.gl/1z5u9L
Edwin Bruno, CEO of SMART CODES. He is an award winning software engineer and entrepreneur with profound passion in providing 360 digital services. He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Smart Codes (T) Limited, a digital agency based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania that is behind the ground-breaking digital newsstand app, M-Paper, and that has a turnover of $350,000, employs 29 full time employees and 15 contract employees. Edwin was recently recognized by Forbes Africa as a billionaire in the making and will likely appear in the cover of Forbes Africa, 20 years from now!
We also got to take part in a capacity building workshop on organizational development with Christine Njurai from Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa. This was particularly useful as The Hub is continuously seeking further funding for our projects.
The Hub will share the knowledge gained at the Young Leaders Forum with our friends and partners in Lesotho. We are grateful for the opportunity we had to meet and network with the young leaders, and look forward to turning the lessons learned into tangible action.
We would like to congratulate Tsebo Makakole for winning The Sankofa Photography Project in October! The theme was the letters of the alphabet. Congrats also to Relebohile Sekhesa for winning the under 16! They won M100 airtime each from Vodacom Lesotho Foundation and Tsebo got a gift certificate to Lindy’s Catering.
The Hub