Did you know?

In the Kingdom of Lesotho:
  • 49% live below the poverty line
  • The average life expectancy is 47 years
  • 80% of adults are unemployed
  • The GNP is approximately $650

In Alexandra Township:
  • Over 300,000 live in an area built to house 70,000
  • 1 in 3 lack clean water and sanitation
  • Over 30% are affected by AIDS


 

Working in Southern Africa's Most Impoverished Communities

LAUNCH serves needy children in both the Kingdom of Lesotho and in Alexandra Township, South Africa. While these two communities differ, the problems destroying their social fabric and limiting the growth of their children are the same: underdeveloped economies, HIV/AIDS, inadequate educational systems and strained family units.

Many children in these areas lack basic necessities including food, shelter, clothing or medicine, and few receive adequate parental guidance or benefit from relationships with adult role models.

 
  Life in the Kingdom of Lesotho
 
The Kingdom of Lesotho is a poor mountainous country embedded entirely within the country of South Africa. The nation gained its political independence from the UK in 1967 but has struggled to achieve economic independence. With an unemployment rate of about 80% and little arable land, much of Lesotho's workforce continues to seek employment in the mines of South Africa. But those fortunate enough to find work in the mines must leave their families behind, typically making the 400-mile trip back to Lesotho only once or twice a year.

Schooling is very expensive. Even the government schools charge fees and students must pay for books, supplies, school uniforms and exams. Total costs are over $100 a year for primary school students and about $500 for high school students - this in a country with a per capita GNP of $650. Parents often spend virtually their entire annual salaries on food staples and school fees - and still only 25% of high school aged children are able to afford school.

In addition to endemic economic problems, the social fabric of Lesotho is constantly under pressure from alcohol abuse and all which that entails - from violence to disease and illness. Riding on this sea of instability are some wonderfully intelligent and sweet children who have but a whisper in their future.

Alexandra Township

The township of Alexandra, South Africa (more commonly referred to as Alex), was established in the early 20th century under Apartheid and is located about 10 miles from the center of Johannesburg.

Alex covers an area of over 80,000 acres. Designed for a population of about 70,000, the township currently houses over 300,000. Original dwellings are subdivided into smaller units, with additional makeshift shanties cobbled to abut the original structures. The result is a dense mishmash of structures - some solid cinderblock, some flimsy metal sheeting, but nearly all with corrugated tin roofs which announce the first raindrops of a storm with a clatter.

Residents get their water from external taps and typically share outhouses with two or three other families. Poor sanitation frequently results in outbreaks of Cholera. Recently these outbreaks have led authorities to raze informal shanty settlements along Alex's river banks, forcibly relocating their inhabitants to the less-crowded township of the infamous Soweto.

Alex suffers from devastating rates of unemployment. There are no mills, no multi-story office buildings and no assembly plants in the township. In fact, no single business employs even a dozen of the city's over a quarter million inhabitants. Finding a job means taking a van out of Alex at a cost of $0.80 round trip, or about a quarter of what one would hope to earn as a full-time laborer or clerk in Johannesburg.

Unable to attract qualified teachers, the township's schools suffer. Teenagers are often left in unsupervised classrooms to study on their own - making it all but impossible to prepare for the nation's 12th grade "Matric" exam. For South African students, passing this test can be a ticket to a brighter future; failing means joining the legions of unemployed.

For the middle and upper strata of South Africa society, the solution is simple: pay an additional fee of several hundred to several thousand dollars a year and go to a private school; a school which takes these additional fees to build better facilities and to attract and pay all the better teachers. The result is clear: upper and middle class students of South Africa pass the "Matric" and end up with all of the scarce positions in the job market, the underclass remains in a downward spiral of poverty, abuse and violence.