Here In Lesotho

There once were scholarships available through Lesotho's Ministry of Education for high school students based on academic performance, my principal tells me. But the system of distribution became so corrupted that they ceased to be.

'Malefa, my star student, could benefit from help paying her tuition after her father lost his job in a South African mine recently. There are other students at my school who perform very well but come from poor families and also can't manage to pay for school. Therefore, I wanted to set up scholarships that would go to students strictly based on academic excellence. Some of my family and other caring people from the States offered to help immediately.

However, I've heard myriad first-hand accounts concerning abuses of funds meant for students by teachers, principals, and Ministry officials here in Lesotho, literally the whole chain of command. I know that heaps of that money came from abroad. And upon reflection, I have been dissuaded from setting up any scholarship program that I cannot directly oversee myself. And furthermore, I have concluded that the money for such a fund should come from inside Lesotho only.

This is severely restricting, but I think it's the wisest option. Foreign aid has poured into Lesotho for so long, and it has been hidden in the pockets of people above those for whom it was intended time and again. That outside money needs to dry up, and the people of Lesotho need to start helping one another.

I know there are some people back home that want to help, but if it's just by sending money then you would do better by helping someone in your own American neighborhood. Watch your money work for those in need at home. Help your neighbor. And don't feel guilty when you see the sob stories on the television news. Foreigners have been sending money here for decades now and it hasn't solved anything.

There are certain ways in which help from outside is valuable. If you were to send me books for our school library it would be worthwhile. Nothing tricky can be done with them, not here and now anyway. And the students truly benefit from them. We have perhaps fifty books, a set of encyclopedias, and a stack of magazines right now and the students are getting great use out of them. They're even being particularly responsible in caring for and returning the items. So I see sending books as acceptable foreign aid at this point because there isn't a single real bookstore in the whole country. We couldn't buy them here if we wanted to. Hopefully, these students will learn to love reading and turn others onto reading and maybe a bookstore could be a viable business venture in Lesotho someday.

But as of now, in general, I believe foreign aid is detrimental. It is a boot holding Lesotho's head against the dirt while reaching down and feeding it just enough to survive. And so, my opinion is that Basotho need to take ownership of their issues and help one another.

The wild thing is that this is nothing close to a novel concept, even among Basotho. One of my teachers even gave me a lecture about this a few months back. She said basically, "We need to get off our rumps and start working!" Also, the owner of the shop in my village once asked me, "When is Lesotho going to send food aid to America? Why won't we work!"

I may not be able to help much, even at my little school, while I'm here, but I certainly don't want to perpetuate any problems. Foreign aid is a problem.

So I'm going to tell my school staff that we need to deal with this issue of school fees on our own. Let's work this out on our own, here in Lesotho.