As the name suggests, Bokamoso Youth Cooperative Society is a youth cooperative and therefore the primary beneficiaries of the project are the youth and their households. Moreover, the Cooperative has open door policy for youth with disabilities and has one member with disability.
Bokamoso Cooperative Society is located in Thaba Tseka, one of the mountain districts. The Society benefited from a planning grant through which a consultant was engaged to help with project proposal elaboration. Much as there are no indigenous people in the district, Sesotho, the local and official language was used throughout the process of proposal elaboration.
Inovative Financial Mechanisms
Members of the Cooperative will continue with monthly meetings with the District Environment Officer, the Town Clerk, Nutrition Officer and other key stakeholders to among others discuss progress and adjust plans where necessary. Meetings with the key stakeholders will enable information sharing across various platforms such as district-level Heads of Departments? meetings. Moreover, with the support from the Town Clerk, District Environment Officer and Nutrition Officer, members of the Cooperative will capture activities and document experiences and lessons through a wide range of media platforms. Lessons learned and experiences will be shared through social media platforms and the community radio station including the national television. Market days will also be another platform for raising awareness to the public and sharing information. The Cooperative will produce pamphlets that document best practices and those will be disseminated in the town of Thaba-Tseka and at national level.
Linkages gef projects
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Planning gef grant
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Policy Influence
One of the immediate outcomes of Key Priority Area III of the National Strategic Development II, Building Enabling Infrastructure, is sustainable solid waste management (Intermediate Outcome 3.6). Through radio programs and awareness campaigns, the Cooperative is contributing improvement of public education and awareness on solid waste generation, handling and recycling. Through cleaning campaigns, the Cooperative is contributing towards improvement of working relations with the informal sector and communities on solid waste management and enhancing shared responsibility and stewardship.
Capacity - Building Component
The Cooperative Society by nature of it being run by youth lack the requisite resources to run a viable and profitable business of waste recycling and income generation. It is currently operating from homes of individual members using household facilities for its food products. For the waste recycling component, the Cooperative operates in an open site allocated for the purpose by the District Urban Council. Training will be provided in the following areas: Training in proper handling of waste and associated hazards, networking and exchange visits with established recycling companies; training in food handling, packaging and quality control; business management and marketing skills; and leadership and conflict management. The Cooperative will also be assisted to acquire basic equipment for waste collection and recycling and production and packaging of targeted food items for income generation.
Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods
The Cooperative Society generates income from sale of crafts made from recyclable waste materials like plastic, bottle and paper. The recycling of waste is complemented with production and sale of food items such as yoghurt and sorghum porridge at a very small-scale. Through the proposed project, the production scale and quality of products (yoghurt and porridge) will be augmented through provision of appropriate training and technology.
Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment
The Cooperative Society has secured a slot at a local community Radio station. The slot is already being used to create awareness about the dangers of illegal dumping of waste and general littering, to both humans and livestock. These campaigns will be more structured and complemented with cleaning campaigns that will be jointly organized with the Urban Council, Department of Environment and the Office of the Town Clerk.
Policy Impact
The project in recycling of waste in Thaba-Tseka town contributes to reduction of solid waste through recycling as well as environmental education on issues relating to solid waste and pollution that is caused by inappropriate waste disposal. Moreover, the proposed project contributes to youth employment and hence poverty reduction as the participating youth have created employment for themselves with a strong likelihood of increased membership as the project grows and increases replication as well as scaling up. Youth unemployment in Lesotho is reported to be around 34.4 percent and therefore initiatives such as the youth creating jobs for themselves are some of sustainable measures highly commendable in addressing the challenge. The project therefore aligns to enhancement of social inclusion especially with the youth being the target beneficiary. Bokamoso Youth Cooperative Society has open policy for inclusion of youth with disabilities in projects and have a member with disability.
The project in waste recycling links with various initiatives addressing issues around pollution and also climate change mitigation and adaptation. In particular, having ratified the Paris Agreement in January 2017, Lesotho needs to provide the necessary information to track progress towards implementing and achieving Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and reducing Green House Gas (GHG) emissions as required under the Enhanced Transparency Framework. A project such as this, albeit its small size, provides an opportunity for scaling up and therefore contributing to reduction in emissions. The project further links to initiatives by development partners such as United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) through Plastic Waste Management Project which aims to reduce, recycle and repurpose plastic waste. Moreover, this proposed project contributes to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and especially SDG 8 and 12.
In order to reduce their plastic footprint, Bokamoso youth will mostly use paper bags to wrap small items sold in order to promote paper bag use among the business community.
Project sustainability
The project is addressing the real challenge of solid waste while at the same time empowering the youth with skills to create jobs for themselves. Bokamoso Youth Cooperative Society continues to have great support from relevant government departments and parastatals. The support provided helps to build the capacity of the Cooperative members in both the skillsets and business management acumen. Therefore the Cooperative Society will continue to liaise closely with these stakeholders and build new networks and partnership along the value chain. Participation in exhibitions and other platforms will enhance the Cooperative?s visibility at national level, thus creating sustainability. Involvement of schools will teach children at a young age the negative impacts of littering to the environment and encourage creativity around recycling which will eventually lead to more young people not only making a living out of recyclable waste but also participating in sound management of the environment. There has not been much ground covered on this front though, due to red tape. Nevertheless more effort will be put into breaking through engagement with relevant government machinery.
Gender Focus
The proposed project takes into consideration gender and social inclusion of all marginalized and vulnerable groups such as women and people with disability. As the name suggests, Bokamoso Youth Cooperative Society is a youth cooperative and therefore the primary beneficiaries of the project are the youth and their households. Moreover, the Cooperative has open door policy for youth with disabilities and has one member with disability. The member with disability is allowed to carry out activities that are manageable with regard to the nature of disability. Therefore going forward the Cooperative will accommodate more people with disabilities where there is willingness to participate. In the same token, the Cooperative has equal opportunities for men and women and the current status is that there are more females than males in the Cooperative and thus implying enhanced participation by women in growth of the Cooperative as well as in decision-making processes.
Replication of project activities
Thus far, there has not been any replication observed.
Planning non gef grant
Two plots of land have been allocated to the Cooperative: one for food processing and the other for recycling operations. Future plans include development of these sites, for growing the two business streams.
Project Results
- Bokamoso Youth Cooperative Society, with majority membership being out-of-school youth, is making strides in creating employment opportunities for youth in Thaba Tseka. With a membership of 18 (11 female and 7 male) the organization has created awareness among local communities that waste can generate income that can contribute towards alleviating poverty and that cleanliness can attract business. This the Cooperative is achieving through a local community Radio where a slot has been set aside for environmental issues and through door-to-door visits to local businesses.
- A few shops have agreed to separate some recyclable waste (plastic and bottles) that the Society collects to make crafts for sale. Thaba Tseka Urban Council granted the Society permission to erect a shelter at the town dumpsite for ease of access to the end point of recyclables that could not be captured at source.
- Through collaboration with Department of Forestry and local authorities, 10,000 (with 85% survival rate) forest trees were planted with local community, at Ha Motsepa (4 ha), in March 2023 around the official tree-planting day, as part of the campaign for greening the environment. The overall impact is yet to be seen and will be reported on in the next coming years.
- To augment income generation, supported by the department of Nutrition and cooperatives, the youth have grown their yoghurt and fermented sorghum porridge business. The business has grown from operations at a member?s household to renting a business space where on average 600 branded bottles of yoghurt are produced per week and sold to local supermarkets. Through networking promoted during joint planning and reporting sessions, a strong partnership has been established with a peer grantee, Thaba Tseka Beef and Dairy Farmers Association, for supply of milk for yoghurt production.
- Through relations with a local community radio, Motjoli FM, Cooperative disseminates environmental information on a regular basis and at no cost to the organisation. Slowly but surely attitudes towards waste disposal, among the business community, are changing positively.
