On the 30 October, 2020 Sepheo held a training targeted at creating a network among community workers around the area of Motimposo to have a platform on how to advise and motivate each other in the work they do, the challenges met and how respective workers deal with those challenges.
At the training we were introduced to the staff who informed us on how SEPHEO came into being: It was in 2012 when Mrs Belinda passed by the streets of Maseru and noticed many children living on the streets. She wondered why they were living on the streets. In her own words, “I could not pretend not to have seen this.”
She then took it upon herself to find out why these kids were not home with their families and that is how her journey began. She later relocated with her family to Lesotho to address this tragedy which she found a solution to: SEPHEO.
After listening to this I recalled the street kids I used to see on the streets of Maseru, we passed by them and better yet we crossed the road to avoid them. We judged them, ridiculed them and made determinations about their future. But one thing we never did is ask them why. Mme Belinda did this.
It then dawns on me how much is going wrong in the Kingdom. Children getting sexually assaulted every minute of everyday, brutal killings of people, kidnappings, teenage pregnancies, teenagers being hooked on drugs and many other distructive things in the rise in our country.
These things are happening in our communities to our children, family members and friends. I then ask myself if as a country we are pretending not to see these things. Did it really have to take ‘M’e Belinda coming here to solve our street-kid problem? Did she really have to uproot her family all the way from Australia to be an answer to our problem?
To the problems we now face are we as a country waiting for the likes of ‘M’e Belinda to come solve those problems too. What will it take for us as a nation to be the answer to our problems?
I take this opportunity to thank ‘M’e Belinda on behalf of the community of Motimposo for the conscience God gave you. Thank you for not unseeing the tragedy our country faced those many years ago.
Thank you for challenging us to realize that the solution lies in us as communities. Thank you for igniting in some of us the fire to bring about change because your single act of kindness has changed the whole dynamic of the streets of Maseru.