Lijeng Ranooe
MORE than a 100 Pitseng High School students in Leribe recently benefitted from a six day intensive training camp which equipped them with leadership and life skills, sexual reproductive health as well as HIV and AIDS education.
Held under the theme, Step it up, hands up for #HIVPrevention… leaders never give up, the training which benefitted 120 male and female learners was held under the auspices of the Yes We Care and Help Lesotho initiatives.
Help Lesotho is a non-governmental organisation dedicated to empowering orphaned, vulnerable children and youth in Lesotho with education and life skills training.
Each year they support thousands of Basotho every year through different programmes to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS through education, psychosocial support and youth leadership development.
Help Lesotho Schools Programme Officer, Johney Lerafa said life skills were “essential to young people’s ability to positively adapt to and deal with the demands and challenges of life”.
“These challenges may include among others the ability to make decisions, solve problems and think critically and creatively as well as clarifying and analysing values.
“HIV and AIDS are a major development challenge to government and families, more so because the youth are the most affected.”
Mr Lerafa said that youths aged 14 to 24 contributed the most to new HIV infections in Lesotho, adding it was therefore important to empower this age group with adequate information on HIV/Aids.
The learners aged from 13 to 21 were divided into two camps and the first which had 60 participants were trained from 23 to the 28 June.
The second was trained from 30 June to 5 July.
The camps were further split into eleven intensive sessions addressing issues of teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS, gender, leadership and sexual violence.
Mr Lerafa said the camps were specifically designed to give children a safe place to learn, ask questions, build self-esteem, overcome their barriers to growth, deal with the trauma they had experienced as well as having fun and developing into strong leaders.