Lesotho - Woman of Courage

April 14, 2016 - the day the Ambassador came to visit

The day we had been planning & waiting so impatiently had now arrived. US Ambassador Matthew Harrington arrived with his entourage of US Embassy & Lesotho media to honor Sr. Juliana with the US Embassy's 2016 Lesotho Woman of Courage award. There to meet him were Bishop Joale Tlhomolo, Sr. Juliana, Sr, Gertrude, the members of the St. Camillus Board, and other VIP guests.  After a long welcome by the Bishop in his offices, Sr. Juliana led the VIPs on a tour of the children's home and farm. The weather served up a perfect day to showcase the gorgeously rich & abundant fruits of the garden, the St. Camillus kids were polished up like the little jewels they are, and the home and I all the grounds were in perfect condition.  A beautiful tent had been erected & decorated and a delicious feast had been prepared.

Sr. Juliana looked a bit fatigued by all the stress of the planning & preparations but she orchestrated the day to perfection. Behind the scenes she had organized a little army of supporters & staff to complete all the prep work of making the grounds shine & setting up the ceremony. Rethabile designed, printed, & delivered lovely invitations & the program. The Mohale's Hoek police even got involved as once Sr. Juliana informed them of the ceremony, they were on hand to escort the Ambassador to the Centre & remain during the festivities as his security force (a ceremonial honor as there were really no security issues).

Ambassador appeared to thoroughly enjoy the tour & the ceremony. He gave a gracious speech that honored Sr. Juliana personally but also honored the whole community of Mohale's Hoek. We had expected him to depart at the conclusion of the ceremony but instead he settled down to enjoy the fabulous feast & good cheer.

Background: In November 2015,  due to Wendy Van Damme's, Lesotho Peace Corps Country Director, encouragement to the PCVs to submit nominations for the Woman of Courage award, I submitted the required 1-page nomination letter. I found out in February 2016 that Sr. Juliana had been selected!

Here is the 2-page biography that Deanna Anderson wrote about Sister Juliana; she was artfully summarized the information from the documents I had created: the St. Camillus Retrospective  & Woman of Courage Nomination

Sister Juliana Manele

Founder and Director

St. Camillus Centre for Orphans and Vulnerable Children

Mohale’s Hoek, Lesotho

March 2016

BIOGRAPHY

Sister Juliana Manele is a native of Lesotho, the small “Kingdom in the Sky” located within Southern Africa. Born in 1949, she grew up in a small mountain village just outside Mohale’s Hoek District Capital. In her early twenties, Sister took her vows as a nun in the Catholic order of the Sisters of the Congregation of the Holy Cross. Living in the Congregation’s convent in the small village of Thoteng, near her birthplace, she has spent the last 14 years advocating and caring for victims of Lesotho’s HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The Call to Respond to the HIV/AIDS Crisis

In early 2002, as the HIV/AIDS epidemic was raging in Lesotho, Sr. Juliana was appointed to represent the Congregation to work with international aid organizations to address the crisis in rural communities. Because available medical services were insufficient, she realized that a village-centered approach to caring for AIDS patients was needed. As a result, Sr. Juliana, along with then Bishop Sebastian Khoarai and the Sisters of the Congregation of the Holy Cross, co-founded the St. Camillus Home Based Care Centre. Sr. Juliana has represented the Congregation and served as Director of the Centre since its inception.

Leading Home-Based Care

With hospitals overflowing and many AIDS patients unable to travel the long distances to health care services, Sr. Juliana developed a model for home-based care. Volunteers from villages in Mohale’s Hoek were trained to care for critically ill AIDS patients and their families. Special attention was given to the ill in remote mountain villages where access to health care was extremely limited and travel is primarily on horseback. The Centre began to minister to the spiritual and physical needs of those suffering from the HIV/AIDS disease using several approaches:

• Gaining the support of village chiefs and obtaining their permission to enter their villages
• Educating the community to abandon the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS and seek help
• Collaborating with international aid groups to acquire resources
• Recruiting, organizing, educating, and providing medical supplies to home-based caregivers

Between 2002 and 2011, Sister enlisted the help of national and international aid organizations to train over 150 caregivers who treated hundreds of patients in more than 50 villages. As the organization matured, caregiver training expanded to address community issues such as HIV prevention as well as the legal and healthcare rights of AIDS patients and orphans.

As the caregivers became increasingly independent, Sr. Julian turned her focus to another problem caused by the HIV/AIDS epidemic – orphaned and vulnerable children.

Providing for Orphaned & Vulnerable Children

In 2011, Sr. Juliana modified the St. Camillus constitution and petitioned for re-certification to provide resident care and fostering to needy children while still facilitating the home-based caregivers. Today the Centre is a full-service home to a fluctuating census of 18-24 resident children, from infants to 18 years old. It also provides food, clothing, education funds, and rent money to 15-20 children living in foster homes in nearby villages. Additionally, it provides food, supplies, and rent money to over 24 destitute individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the community. St. Camillus is one of the few orphanages in Lesotho that cares for children under the age of 5. These children typically arrive traumatized, malnourished, significantly underweight and often developmentally delayed. Local health care organizations have been tapped to teach the staff how to care for these children and bring them to a state of health and happiness.

Striving for Sustainability

During the spring of 2015, Sr. Juliana worked with Bishop Tlhomola, her Congregation, and several organizations to raise funds to expand the Centre’s small farm to become commercially viable. Sr. Juliana’s goal is to make St. Camillus a self-sustaining organization by selling nutritious farm produce to the community, reducing dependency on donations and ensuring the children have enough food year-round.

The drought of 2015-2016 has caused tremendous hardship for the Basotho, the native people of Lesotho. There are food shortages because water for home gardens is scarce and the maize fields that normally supply the traditional staple, papa, are barren. Sr. Juliana has met nature’s challenge and installed a new well, an irrigation system, and a greenhouse. The Centre’s water supply is now adequate to supply irrigation to the commercial fields and the children’s home.

Today the farm includes a dairy cow, pigs, a peach orchard, vegetable gardens. Preparations are underway to restore a chicken coop and purchase poultry layers. There is enough food for the children and the Centre has the potential to make a small income from commercial sales. The expanded farm also provides jobs to people living with HIV/AIDS, boosting their self-esteem and enabling them to be productive and contribute to their own family’s needs.

Sr. Juliana’s spiritual foundation, dedication, ethics, and talent for finding solutions stem from her childhood on a farm in a small rural village. The vows that she took over forty years ago still guide her and she in turn has engaged and provided for the community of Mohale’s Hoek. As a result, Sr. Juliana was named Lesotho’s Woman of Courage 2016 by the U.S. Embassy.