Bataung Moeketsi
THE construction of Lesotho’s first centre for youths with intellectual disabilities and autism, IDAL Centre is expected to be complete this month.
The centre is being built in Maqhaka, Berea district.
IDAL public relations officer Makhetha Moshabesha said the centre will be officially opened on 2 April 2020, a date that coincides with World Autism Awareness Day.
IDAL is made up of the merger of Intellectual Disability Association of Lesotho and Autism Lesotho. The two organisations merged last year.
IDAL is a non-profit organisation which provides care and other services for people living with intellectual disability and autism, supports parents and caregivers and raises awareness around the conditions.
Mr Moshabesha, who is also a father of a 16-year-old autistic boy named Maisa, recently told the Sunday Express that the project would also act as a multifunctional care centre.
“We want to ensure that the voices of people with intellectual disabilities and autism are heard both from a policy and a programming perspective,” Mr Moshabesha said.
“The centre is part of the big dream to serve people with intellectual disabilities and their parents. It will also be a skills development centre for people with these conditions.”
Standard Lesotho Bank (SLB) is the majority sponsor of the centre after covering the direct project costs from funds raised through pledges from their annual golf day.
IDAL benefited from the proceeds of the last two years’ tournaments amounting to M862 000 and an additional M340 000 from the bank alone received last year.
Additional sponsors include RISE (Relationships Inspiring Social Enterprise) International who covered overhead costs, Global Fund for Jesus who sponsored the electricity and water of the centre and Metropolitan Lesotho who pledged funds for toilets.
RISE founder Daniela Gusman said IDAL first approached them last February and contracted them for the project.
Construction of the pavilion began in August 2019 under RISE’s IN LOCO entrepreneurship programme.
“We partner with communities that need infrastructure development for a positive social impact in that community. There is also a social enterprise element to the project,” Ms Gusman said.
Cohorts of the fellowship gain hands-on experience as the programme focuses on creating entrepreneurs by transforming job seekers into job creators.
“By the end of the fellowship, we want them to be in a position to setup their own companies. We also enrol them into an on-going development programme once they finish the fellowship as well,” Ms Gusman said.
The centre will have the country’s first multisensory and diagnostics room built using timber as well as the country’s first social enterprise farm for youths to learn business skills despite their disabilities.
In future, they hope to develop the land for agricultural purposes and lease it to generate income and provide jobs for people living with intellectual disabilities and autism.
For his part, SLB marketing manager Manyathela Kheleli said the bank helped develop the strategic plan of the centre.
“We found them (IDAL) when they were still a small outfit trying to find its feet and helped them engage a consultant, capacitate their management structures and develop a strategic plan.
“Out of that strategic plan came the idea for them to have a centre of their own that they can use for their activities and also possibly to look at how they can rent out the space for fundraising purposes,” Mr Kheleli said.
Mr Kheleli said they were grateful for their partnership with IDAL and RISE because aspects of the project, including the use of young entrepreneurs, resonate with the bank’s values.