Building democracy in Lesotho

Mennonite Central Committee
Friday, 17 November 2000

MASERU, Lesotho -- After fighting surrounded the elections in 1998, people in this southern Africa country are asking what democracy means, Lira Theko of the Democracy Project in Lesotho said.

They are asking whether democracy is "something that can operate in schools, families, the work place and how can an individual apply it in their life," he explained.

The Democracy Project, part of the Transformation Resource Centre in the capital, Maseru, addresses these questions. The organization prepares and distributes materials for secondary schools to use in development studies and civic education classes. These materials teach students about their role in the civic life of their country.

The Transformation Resource Centre is one of Mennonite Central Committee's (MCC) primary partner agencies in Lesotho.

"We want to work with teachers and students to help them find answers to these questions and to be responsible, involved citizens of Lesotho," said Theko, whose work in 2000 was funded by MCC.

Through the Democracy Project, they engage in debates, mock elections, visits to the national parliament and other activities to learn about voting, how laws are made and the limitations that come with the freedoms of democracy.

"Because democracy is a relatively new process in Lesotho, people tend to perceive it as meaning the same as absolute freedom," Theko explains. "Discussions about the limitations and interpretations of human rights and democracy are received eagerly, because students want to know how they can participate in good governance of their country."

The Transformation Resource Centre recently produced a simplified form of the Lesotho Constitution, which they distribute widely through the Democracy Project. They have also prepared a manual and conducted a workshop to help teachers present the simplified constitution in a creative and engaging way.

Teachers are a primary target group for the Democracy Project because of their importance to the learning process both in schools and in communities, Theko said.

The Project plans to identify and train teachers from the workshops to be monitors in the next round of Lesotho national elections, which are scheduled for May 2001. With an understanding of the total voting process, teachers will be deployed as election monitors to remote mountain areas of Lesotho where other monitoring groups are less inclined to go. When they return to their classrooms and communities, they will share firsthand information and enthusiasm.

Theko hopes to expand the Democracy Project materials to include elementary school students and teachers. "The only way to have a nation of informed, responsible citizens is to begin teaching about democratic process at a very early age," Theko said.

A further step will be to add a conflict transformation component to the Projectís materials. "We want to include discussions of various strategies people can use in a democratic nation," Theko said. "If we discuss working at change, problem-solving, and introduce conflict management skills, we believe we will help strengthen democracy and good governance practices here in Lesotho."

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org