Lesotho – Our Global Tithe Partnership

As part of Habitat’s International Tithe Program, Habitat of East Jefferson County has continued its financial commitment to support programs in Lesotho and Ethiopia. In October 2016, Nepal was added as a global partner. Our local efforts make a difference internationally by providing support to areas in critical need of housing solutions.

Lesotho, a landlocked nation surrounded by the country of South Africa, has the second highest rate of adult HIV/AIDs in the world. With our help, the local Habitat affiliate in Lesotho builds housing and increases access to sanitation for one of the most vulnerable populations – orphaned children who are left in the care of elderly relatives, single mothers or older siblings. In 2016, Executive Director Jamie Maciejewski traveled to Lesotho see the impact our contribution has made.

Mme. Tsukulu is sound asleep, dreaming the old, familiar dream. The rain is coming down hard, but in her dream no water is running into her poor mud hut with the leaking roof. This time, she dreams, she is living in a new house with a strong roof and a solid foundation, and she and the six great-grandchildren she is raising are snug and dry in their beds. Mme. Tsukulu wakes in the dark, confused. Rain drums on the roof. The confusion of sleep slips away, as she remembers that her dream isn’t a dream any longer.

Mme. Tsukulu has lived her entire 70 years in Khopocha, a rural village in mountainous Lesotho. She grew up near the chief’s house, and has raised three generations of children there. The middle generations are mostly gone now, some dead, some working in the larger cities of South Africa. Her tiny, one-room, mud-brick home was deeply cracked, requiring constant repair and always threatening to return to the clay ground from which it was made. The shame she felt isolated her from her longtime neighbors. Each one of her family suffered ill health from the poor condition of the house. The lack of a solid door meant she couldn’t leave home for even a few hours without fearing that the little she owned would disappear while she was gone.

Through the years, the chief kept an eye on her. When Habitat for Humanity came to the area, the chief nominated Mme. Tsukulu and her family to receive a new home. In the spring of 2016, she helped build that new home right alongside members of a Global Village team from Ireland. Joy and gratitude beam from her face as she recounts her story to visitors.

Finally, at the age of 70, she and the little ones, ages 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 and 12, live in a simple, well-built home with a solid foundation, a strong roof, and a door that locks. Her monthly pension of USD $37, together with $20 sent home by one of the children’s mothers, is enough, now that she no longer worries about having a home. She gardens in order to supplement their simple diet.

Mme. Tsukulu is surrounded by the busy activity of the children who are too young to be in school, and gratitude spreads across her face—gratitude for the donors and volunteers of Habitat for Humanity. Life is good. Her dream is real.