I decided to do a post today on Lesotho in south Africa. I had never really heard much about Lesotho until recently, when a charity run by a doctor in my community became very prominent. The charity aims to wipe out HIV/AIDS in Lesotho through fundraising and medical work. Lesotho currently has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS in the world, and in 2004 the Prime Minister was tested publicly for it to encourage people to get tested. While the Aids pandemic in Lesotho is a huge issue, there are also other issues that the country must face. Some being poverty and scarce resources. One issue that Lesotho has recently begun to overcome is a turbulent government. The royal family, army factions, and different parties in Lesotho have vied for power of the region for years. It was not until 2002 that peaceful elections were held; the current Prime Minister of Lesotho is Bethuel Pakalitha Mosisili. He is the leader of Lesotho Congress for Democracy. The LCD party promised (through campaigns) to expand free education in the country, and increase pensions (BBC News, April 19, 2011). While improvements have been made in the government system, seeing as people are allowed to vote for their leader (as they should be able to) there is still some violence surrounding the Prime Minister. In 2009 gunmen attempted to assassinate him by firing on his home, however this failed and he was unharmed. Also, when he was first elected in 1998 there were violent protests that followed and military mutinies. This ended when South African and Botswana forces intervened (The World Factbook, May 17, 2011). There is also a King of Lesotho, who is King Letsie III, however he does not hold any legislative or executive power (BBC News, April 19, 2011). You can compare their government to ours in a way, as Queen Elizabeth is a symbolic ruler of the country, yet we have a Prime Minster who holds much more power.
It had a bit of difficulty finding relevant articles on the education system in Lesotho. But I did come across some statistics from UNICEF that completely blew me away, in a good way. The literacy rate for male youth age 15-24 is 86 percent. For a country that is struggling so much with poverty and the Aids epidemic I find that number amazing. However what I find even more amazing is that the female literacy rate for ages 15-24 is 98 percent. Hallelujah! I can't begin to explain how happy that makes me. After doing so much research on these less developed countries that do not educate the girls and women in their country properly it is wonderful to see these statistics. I encourage everyone reading this to go take a look at the statistics for education, as many of them are extremely impressive (UNICEF, March 2, 2010). I was also very impressed by an article I found at BBC that followed a teacher in Lesotho. She stated that she would teach the children in her class about HIV and Aids. In 2000 they started to use pamphlets in class to help teach the children. This particular teacher also had speakers come into her class to speak to the children about their experience with HIV/Aids. The teacher also stated that, "They (the children) go home and tell their mothers who don't know about this sickness and this sickness is a killer" (BBC News, May 5, 2009). I think it's great that the teacher realized that teaching her students about the disease would help to educate their parents and friends as well.
To be honest, when I watched this BBC video (BBC News, March 8, 2011). I almost started to cry because I was so happy. I know that sounds incredibly sappy, but I am honestly so tired of reading about how women are treated terribly around the world that it was such a relief to see that one less developed nation is making so much progress towards gender equality. Lesotho is ranked at number eight in the world for gender equality by the World Economic Forum. It comes before both Canada and the U.S. which are not even in the top ten. Women make up a huge portion of the work force in Lesotho, as many men had to leave to work in South African mines. They are returning now to a female focused world. Even politics is now being more influenced by women, as one in five government ministers is female. Lesotho can still improve in some ways, but every country can, so this is nothing new. Lash Mokhathi coaches a girls football (soccer) team and says that she wants to see more women in construction work, and a political party led by a woman. She says when this happens then she will believe that Lesotho has reached true gender equality (BBC News, March 8, 2011).
I applaud Lesotho for reaching such an amazing state of gender equality; they clearly have issues that they need to work through as well, but they have managed to bridge their gender gap (somewhat) and see that more girls than boys are literate.Of all the less developed countries I have researched I have never been more impressed by one than Lesotho. I truly believe that at the rate they are going they could see themselves become a developed country. I know that is a bold statement, but just look at them currently. In a continent that is notorious for poverty, poor education, violence, and large gender gaps, Lesotho just shines. It will be interesting to see how they develop over the coming years.
