The Role of Indigenous Knowledge in Biodiversity Conservation in the Lesotho Highlands: Exploring Indigenous Epistemology

This paper is based on part of a broad study to investigate indigenous knowledge applied by the Lesotho Highlands communities to conserve biodiversity. A questionnaire was administered in 12 villages, to a population of 139 interviewees. It guided interviews on conservation of selected faunal and floral species with various community groups in the highlands: men, women, herd-boys and school pupils. It is illustrated that there are practices and beliefs about certain species that contribute towards their conservation. Through these beliefs species are perceived to have powers to cause certain awesome consequences for humans if destroyed, seen or encountered, and some species are believed to have abilities to communicate some messages to humans. It is argued that these beliefs and practices reflect evidence of the existence of a complex epistemological framework characterised by physical and spiritual interconnections of humans with other species. Some implications of the emergent epistemology for educational and conservation approaches are discussed

Embodied learning: Responding to AIDS in Lesotho's education sector

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in Children's Geographies, 7(1), 2009. Copyright @ 2009 Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14733280802630981.In contrast to pre-colonial practices, education in Lesotho's formal school system has historically assumed a Cartesian separation of mind and body, the disciplining of students' bodies serving principally to facilitate cognitive learning. Lesotho has among the highest HIV-prevalence rates worldwide, and AIDS has both direct and indirect impacts on the bodies of many children. Thus, students' bodies can no longer be taken for granted but present a challenge for education. Schools are increasingly seen as a key point of intervention to reduce young people's risk of contracting the disease and also to assist them to cope with its consequences: there is growing recognition that such goals require more than cognitive learning. The approaches adopted, however, range from those that posit a linear and causal relationship between knowledge, attitudes and practices (so-called ‘KAP’ approaches, in which the role of schools is principally to inculcate the pre-requisite knowledge) to ‘life skills programmes’ that advocate a more embodied learning practice in schools. Based on interviews with policy-makers and practitioners and a variety of documentary sources, this paper examines a series of school-based AIDS interventions, arguing that they represent a less radical departure from ‘education for the mind’ than might appear to be the case. The paper concludes that most interventions serve to cast on children responsibility for averting a social risk, and to ‘normalise’ aberrant children's bodies to ensure they conform to what the cognitively-oriented education system expects

Situational analysis of services for orphans and other vulnerable children in Lesotho: final report

Commissioned by the Government of Lesotho, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, JanuaryLesotho is an impoverished country (labelled a Least Developed Country by the United Nations (UN)) with a population of 1.8 million people 70% of whom are under the age of 18 years old (BOS, 2007). Poverty levels are very high and are mostly driven by high levels of unemployment. The unemployment rate in Lesotho is conservatively estimated at 35% (BOS, 2007). Lesotho has the third highest HIV prevalence rate in the world with an adult HIV sero-prevalence of 23.2% (BOS, 2007; Khobotlo et al., 2009). The socio-economic impacts of the epidemic have been devastating, such that HIV/AIDS has reduced life expectancy of Basotho to 40 years. There has also been an unprecedented increase in the number of orphans 19% of children under the age of 18 years have lost both parents. AIDS is largely responsible for the increase in the rate of orphan prevalence. According to Khobotlo et al. (2009), AIDS accounts for 80% of orphan cases in the country. While these figures are worrying, the consolation is that it can almost certainly be assumed that orphan-focused interventions will reach mainly AIDS-orphaned children without further programmes having to be devised. Against this backdrop, the MOHSW commissioned a study to conduct an analysis of service provision for OVC as part of the comprehensive situation analysis of OVC in Lesotho. The study's aim is to help guide effective implementation of OVC programmes, identify service gaps and priorities for new areas of intervention, and provide recommendations on how to make service provision to OVC more effective and efficient