Upholding the Rights of Vulnerable Children - Lesotho

Firelight has long recognized that community-based organizations are uniquely positioned to protect children and keep them safe within their communities, especially in tumultuous political and social environments, where community organizations can often serve as stable support systems. Due to their grounding in and understanding of their communities, CBOs are adept at working with the key actors in children’s lives to provide protective safety nets for them. However, CBOs face significant challenges in accessing resources and often have limited capacity in organizational management. In response to this challenge, Firelight began funding many individual community-based organizations in Lesotho working to uphold the rights of vulnerable children. However, we soon realized that we wanted to provide greater support to help these organizations strengthen their structure and their programs. In 2009, Firelight began to work with a stronger community-based organization – Touch Roots Africa (TRA) – to provide workshops to build the capacity of other community organizations in areas such as child protection and organizational development. As a Firelight Lead Partner – a strong indigenous organization that funds and mentors smaller local organizations – TRA could provide essential lived experience in organizational development and tailored contextually-appropriate technical guidance to each CBO. It was clear that TRA’s ability to enhance organizational development could strengthen the critical role of civil society in providing services to children throughout Lesotho. Firelight then recognized that TRA had the potential to take on not only capacity building, but also grantmaking to these small organizations. As a Community Grantmaker, TRA was able to develop a robust “funding pipeline” to the ten CBOs it has supported as Lead Partner since 2009. These resources reach even further into communities where resources for children and families are needed most. As a Community Grantmaker, each sub-grant that TRA makes to a CBO ranges from $6,300 to $8,500 and is used to strengthen each community’s initiatives to protect young children from harm and abuse and to uphold their rights.