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Grade 12 students (above) attending Viking School raised funds over a three-year period to assist a school orphanage (below) in Lesotho, Africa.
Molapo High School, in Lesotho, was twinned with Alberta’s Viking School in 2005.
Alberta’s Viking School and Molapo High School, in Lesotho, Africa, are both the richer, thanks to a school twinning project.
Viking School’s relationship with Lesotho began in September 2005, when Viking resident Brian Rozmahel introduced the idea of a three-year school twinning project. The school’s then Grade 10 students were eager to get involved. Since then, Viking School and Molapo High School have communicated regularly through handwritten letters, and Viking School has raised the community’s awareness of the plight facing people in Lesotho and has solicited funds to assist Molapo High School.
The majority of the students attending Molapo High School are orphans, who live at the school. The students lack essentials, from food to clothes to school supplies. From the beginning, Viking School decided to raise the hopes of Molapo’s students by showing them that people in another part of the world cared about them. It would be a challenging undertaking, as the average life expectancy in Lesotho is less than 40 years, 29 per cent of the population lives with HIV/AIDS and the country’s economy has been devastated by extreme poverty.
The two schools are now in the final year of their three-year project. Each year since the project’s inception, Viking School’s students have raised money for Molapo’s students. During the first year of the project, Viking School sent enough money to Lesotho to build the school a piggery, which provides the students with a sustainable food source. The money raised last year was earmarked for school supplies and clothes. And already this year, the Dare to Care Project has raised more than $2,000 and, along with $800 from last year’s grad class, the school sent about $3,000 to Lesotho in March. Finally, Christy Fraser, a Grade 12 student representative, and Robert Shaw, a teacher, are organizing the school’s last Lesotho fundraiser, which will feature an African meal and local entertainment.
Thanks to the twin school project, Viking School’s awareness of the struggles faced by Lesotho’s students has been enriched, and students in a tiny African country are one step closer to obtaining an education, which in itself is priceless.
—Story and photos courtesy of Robert Shaw and Lisa Morken, Viking School
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