Evacuation and ELMA Conference

What a month, Lesotho!

Where to begin? Perhaps the alleged political coup or the Prime Minister flitting to and from South Africa like he's running a relay race or the renegade General-Lieutenant refusing to accept his dismissal or the full scale evacuation of American residents/ American Peace Corps and TTLF's Fellows from Lesotho! Phew. Not your average run-of-the-mill month!

Political Headache

Politically, things remain as uncertain here as they did at the beginning of the month. Who knows what is really going on! Nobody seems to know. Parliament remains closed, despite promises to reopen it last week, and the political elite remain very disgruntled. However it doesn't seemed to have affected the public much. At the very least, it hasn't really affected us here in Mokhotlong so we've carried on business as usual. The fellows are now back in country and very pleased to be home. Mokhotlong has bloomed into Spring: the peach blossom decorates the mountains and the temperature has soared to a very warm 80-85F. It is a beautiful time of year here and we hope that the ugliness of political instability will keep away from us in our Mountainous haven.
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ELMA Relief

'M'e Nthabeleng (Managing Director of TTL) joined the exiled Fellows in Johannesburg last week for a conference hosted by ELMA Philanthropies. It was absolutely wonderful, on so many levels, which makes it hard to condense what we learned into one blog. Let's just say that we each came away empowered, inspired, motivated and chomping at the bit to implement some of our new skills at TTL! The focus of the conference was 'Resource Mobilisation' or, in layman's terms, fundraising and organisation growth. We learned about the importance of financial sustainability, community involvement and multi-partnership to the success of any organisation. We met so many other NGOs/NFPs/charities from across Southern Africa during the conference. It was very reassuring to learn that the challenges we face are not unique to TTL. Almost every other organisation is at a different stage of dealing with the very same issues. Those who have overcome the same challenges we experience on a day to day basis inspiring and have given us a lot of hope for the future! We want to thank you ELMA Philanthropies for hosting such a wonderful workshop and networking event. We look forward to the next annual meeting!