Sentebale and the Thuso Centre
Sentebale, working closely with the Ministry of Education in Lesotho, has agreed to transform The Thuso Centre into a National Centre of Excellence for children with special needs in the north of Lesotho.
However, during the first phase of work at Thuso, refurbishing the buildings and installing specialist facilities for the disabled children, Sentebale identified serious concerns surrounding the level of child care management at the Centre. Despite the allocation of funds from Sentebale last year to enable the appointment of an experienced Special Needs professional, this post was not appointed.
Kedge Martin, CEO of Sentebale says:
“The Thuso Centre is a vital organisation for children with special needs and one that we believe can really transform the way that these children are cared for in Lesotho.
Sentebale's model of development aid is to build capacity and capability in local community based organisations rather than to take over the running of projects directly. Although this can be slow, we believe this way of working is more sustainable in the long term when the local community has ownership, skills, commitment and support to look after their own people.
In addition to Sentebale's development and ongoing funding support for staff, last year, the Ministry of Education also significantly increased its funding for Thuso. However, despite this dramatic increase in funding, we still do not believe that the children are getting the best care possible due to the lack of effective management. In November 2009, we agreed with the Ministry of Education to suspend any further development of the infrastructure until these crucial issues are resolved. We have developed a joint proposal on the way forward and once these governance arrangements are in place, we will reactivate the development plans.
In the meantime, we do however continue to contribute funds to Thuso, paying for some salaries and food for the children".
© Sentebale 2011