MIL Connect

From October 24-28, 2022, The Hub partook in MIL Connect, a collaborating event organised by DW Akademie, including a Media and Information Literacy (MIL) exchange, lively discussions, an MIL exhibition and creation of MIL products aimed at addressing the need for MIL education in the SADC region.

DW Akademie has been working with The Hub and other partners in Namibia and SADC to make MIL education accessible to youth from all corners of the region, as we believe it to be critical competencies to navigate through today’s information eco-systems.

The week also included the launch of an open-source MIL Content Hub, a website created by DW Akademie and a group of organisations including The Hub from SADC countries that are passionate about empowering our citizens with Media and Information Literacy skills.

We strongly believe that MIL skills will enable the citizens of our countries and communities to make informed decisions that can enrich and better their lives. We therefore strongly advocate for MIL in our societies. We have developed and tested a wide variety of educational MIL material, using the expertise within our organisations.

Are you at school or university?

and you want to understand where ‘news’ comes from? Or do you have questions about the social media you use: how safe is it? Or how you can better use your social media to share ideas and activities with friends and classmates?

Are you a teacher, or an educator?

planning for a project and want information about the mechanisms behind news and information, and social media? Do you need interactive class sessions about news, information, and social media? Are you looking for playful yet insightful activities for your classes about Media and Information Literacy?

Are you an organisation that works with Media and Information?

that advocates for freedom of speech, for the right to access information, for Internet safety, etc. and you are looking for campaign ideas based on Media and Information Literacy principles?

The Media and Information Literacy Content Hub offers you a range of resources that will assist you with these questions.

Visit the MIL Content Hub!

Spaces of Solidarity

From October 20-22, 2022, Maleshoane Mohanoe represented The Hub at Spaces of Solidarity (SoS) meeting in Johannesburg. An SoS Forum was founded by the 21 organisations that attended the meeting.

From this space, the organisations reaffirmed the commitment to the following:

  • freedom of expression
  • free access to information
  • free civic space
  • safety and security of journalists
  • safe and free exchange in the digital sphere in Southern Africa.

Such commitment is founded on regional and international instruments and standards and more specifically, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The SoS Forum seeks to promote co-ordination, collaboration and advocacy within the Southern African region aimed at addressing the following four thematic issues:

  • shrinking civic space
  • access to information
  • cyber security regulation
  • safety of journalists

The SoS Forum is committed to:

  1. Work together in solidarity to support, develop and strengthen resilient media systems in Southern Africa.
  2. Develop a new support mechanism for collaborative campaign work on the basis of the Spaces of Solidarity meeting to highlight attacks on free speech and media freedom, including using key anniversary dates like World Press Freedom Day (3 May).
  3. Take effective steps to analyse trends on media freedom in the region, identify emerging issues, build coalitions of campaigners around threats on media freedoms and campaigning to end these together.
  4. Provide a platform to advocate for improved safety of journalists, expansion of civil space and enhanced cyber security.
  5. Reaffirm the importance of access to information laws as enabling legislation from which other rights may be enjoyed.
  6. Support like-minded organisations in advocacy for access to information, safety of journalists, digital rights, and an improved civil society space.
  7. Undertake monitoring, advocacy, research, policy development, awareness raising, on access to information legislation, cybersecurity, digital rights and the safety of journalists.
  8. Reiterate our commitment to working together to ensure the effective realisation of the commitments outlined in these resolutions.

Many thanks to DW Akademie for inviting The Hub!

World Cleanup Day 2022

To commemorate World Cleanup Day 2022, we brought our 100 Skills & Soup participants for tours at Pheha Plastic in Morija.

Our theme for 2022 was ‘REFUSE’, ‘REDUCE’ and ‘RECYCLE’, especially for single use plastic, and thinking about a future where we don’t need cleanup campaigns.

Although Skills & Soup participants have been participating in environmental education, the tours allowed the participants to experience recycling hands-on, and see waste transform into a valuable item.

Through the tours, the participants gained a deeper understanding of the potential of a circular economy in our community. Increasing awareness of the value of recycled plastic can help reduce the amount that ends up in our rivers, and eventually the ocean.

Special thanks to Pheha Plastic for hosting us all week, and to Glasswaters Foundation for their support! Big thanks also to Vodacom Lesotho Foundation and European Union in Lesotho for sponsoring incredible prizes for our participants, given out as rewards for good participation and answering difficult questions about what they have learned!

The Hub’s experience with cleanup campaigns:

World Environment Day 2022

With support from the Delegation of the European Union to the Kingdom of Lesotho, The Hub hosted 180 students from 3 primary schools for 3 days of World Environment Day activities from June 1-3, 2022.

World Environment Day (June 5) was celebrated under the theme #OnlyOneEarth. Led by the United Nations Environment Programme and held annually since 1973, the event is the largest global platform for environmental outreach. It engages governments, businesses, academia and millions of people around the world.

We have #OnlyOneEarth. Let’s take care of it.

The 2022 World Environment Day campaign #OnlyOneEarth calls for collective, transformative action on a global scale to celebrate, protect and restore our planet.

The Hub hosted 180 students from Matsieng to tour our photography exhibition on climate change and environmental degradation. Some students won exciting prizes for answering difficult questions about what they have learned! The Hub also handed out copies of our environmental education posters to all the students.

We were honoured to have the Head of the European Union Delegation to the Kingdom of Lesotho, Paola Amadei, with us on Friday, June 3!

Special thanks to the European Union in Lesotho for their support of the tours! Big thanks to Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa and European Union in Lesotho for supporting the photography workshop which this exhibition is the result of. Big thanks also to the UK in Lesotho for supporting the printing of the exhibition and the creation of the take-home learning materials.

For more about World Environment Day visit: https://www.worldenvironmentday.global/

Exhibition: Climate change and environmental degradation

To mark Earth Day, The Hub opened an outdoor exhibition on climate change and environmental degradation on April 22, 2022. The exhibition is the result of a workshop at The Hub on storytelling in photography in 2019, and was forced on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic. We’re so happy to finally be able to share the participants’ work! The exhibition is free and open to the public on the grounds of Morija Museum & Archives.

We are offering free guided tours of the exhibition. Contact us @ +266 5888 8387 if you want a tour of the exhibition. Pop-ins are also welcome!

Special thanks to all the partners who made our climate change exhibition possible: UK in Lesotho, Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, European Union in Lesotho, Glasswaters Foundation and Vodacom Lesotho Foundation.

Thanks to UK in Lesotho and Glasswaters Foundation, we’ve also been able to hand out some of our take-home learning materials.

We also have a ‘Climate Change and Inclusive Design in Urban Planning’ exhibition by Rise – Relationships Inspiring Social Enterprise on display.