Bataung Moeketsi
SOS Children’s Village Lesotho and DHL have signed a partnership that will see the latter offering internship to 290 youths from across the country to enhance their employability.
Dubbed GoTeach, the programme is part of the Deutsche Post DHL Group’s (DPDHL Group) corporate social investment (CSI) initiative. GoTeach aims at improving the lives of young people by helping its participants become employable through internship and mentorship.
Established in 1994, SOS Children’s Village Lesotho is a nongovernmental organisation (NGO) that aims to “meet the needs and protect the interests and rights of orphaned and vulnerable children”.
The organisation currently supports 260 children in Quthing and Maseru (Lithabaneng) through alternative care family homes and 2 256 others in their homes of origin through its Family Strengthening outreach programme.
The partnership was signed by Molopo Mokorosi, SOS’ national director and Mutale Mwila, the DHL Lesotho country manager in Maseru recently.
Mr Mokorosi said the initiative was meant to offer different forms of on the job training to the youths through shadowing DHL staff to enhance their employability.
He said this would also offer the youths guidance while ultimately reducing the country’s unemployment rate which stood at 33, 22 percent as of 2018.
Mr Mokorosi told the Lesotho Times that their engagements with DHL started in 2016 but partnership was stalled by the unavailability of a country manager. However, Mr Mwila’s arrival in January 2019 “resuscitated the dream”.
“I did my SOS orientation in Uganda, which is a similar environment with Lesotho when I joined the organisation in 2016 and they had a huge GoTeach programme, so when I came back (to Lesotho) I thought we needed something similar,” Mr Mokorosi said.
“Unfortunately, the preparations were insufficient in the country but I think today is the opportune time to launch this programme.”
Mr Mwila said it was important for the private sector, NGOs and the government to collectively enhance the competence of young Basotho in the marketplace.
“The marriage has begun and as DHL, we believe in operating at speed, so the work begins immediately,” Mr Mwila said.
For her part, GoTeach programme manager Sub Saharan Africa, Lee Swartz said: “Because of how we would like to connect people and improve their lives, an employability programme came naturally because we have over 500 000 employees across the globe who are hired because they have specific skills, because they are specialists in their respective fields”.
“Those specialists have skills, experience, knowledge and some wisdom that they can share with the young people, so this is a natural fit,” Ms Swartz said.
Ms Swartz added that the GoTeach programme would have been rolled out in 31 countries by the end of 2019 while plans were underway to gain more global partners and have 40 countries participating by the end of 2020.
DHL was founded in 1969 by Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn, whose surnames make up the company’s initials.
It is now the world’s largest aviation courier boasting a total of 250 aircrafts.
DHL Lesotho has 30 employees who will volunteer in “a series of programmes that include mentoring, coaching, forums for educational and vocational guidance, capacity building for better employability and vocational training seminars”.
