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Physiotherapy and Outreach Program Lesotho (POP Lesotho) is community based and its outreach program operates across three districts, Maseru, Leribe and Butha-Buthe, with a particular focus on children with cerebral palsy (CP). POP has a holistic approach to its work and is concerned with the physical, emotional, and social welfare of children with disabilities. It advocates for children’s rights through awareness raising and supports inclusive education through enabling environments and promoting positive attitudes and behaviours.
Need for the Work
Need for the Work
The Lesotho Children’s Protection and Welfare act of 2011 states that “A child with disability has a right to dignity, special care medical treatment, rehabilitation, family and personal integrity, sports and recreation, education and training to help him enjoy a full and decent life and achieve the greatest degree of self-reliance and social integration”.
POP fully endorses this legislation while recognising the challenges this presents in Lesotho as a low-income country, with poor infrastructure, food poverty, high levels of disability, both congenital and acquired, and a deprived health service with few physiotherapists or allied health care professionals. Without paediatric physiotherapy specialists in Lesotho there is little detailed knowledge about how to assess and treat children with disabilities and many children living in rural poverty struggle to access even the basics of health care.
https://media.lesotholii.org/files/legislation/akn-ls-act-2011-7-eng-2011-03-31.pdf
Our Story
Our Story
The need for the work was apparent to Jan Jeffrey during her visits to Lesotho between 2016 and 2020 as a volunteer physiotherapist supporting children with disabilities in residential homes. On these project initiatives for Wales for Africa and Dolen Cymru she learnt that by being creative with available resources and training staff in the fundamentals of physiotherapy and health care, children's lives could be greatly improved, even in low-resource settings.
In 2020, Jan approached Glasswaters Foundation Canada as a funding partner to support support a physiotherapy community initiative. The project would bring much needed physiotherapy and health education to children with disabilities and their families living in rural poverty. With Thato Kalebe as a co-director, the Physiotherapy and Outreach Program (POP Lesotho) was founded in March 2020. Jan retired from Welsh NHS at the end of 2021 and returned to Lesotho as a full-time volunteer.
In 2022 POP Lesotho registered as a non-profit company in Lesotho. With a grant from the British High Commission it built its workshop at Abia High school in 2023, where it repairs wheelchairs and makes APT furniture from recycled cardboard. It currently supports children with disabilities at two mainstream schools and works in the community with families in Maseru, Leribe, and Butha-Buthe supporting children with physiotherapy, health care and assistive equipment.
Our Impact
Our Impact
Physiotherapy & Outreach:
POP Lesotho provides assessment, advice and support for children attending CP workshops in Maseru, Leribe and Butha-Buthe. POP has visited more than 300 families in the community across these three districts to assess children’s physiotherapy needs, provide education and training for caregivers and supply assistive devices for children.
Training caregivers in physiotherapy exercises means they can be their child’s daily therapist at home.Here the physiotherapy assistant works with caregivers showing them exercises for daily supported standing practice to help strengthen a child's legs.
APT Workshop:
2023-2024 - The APT workshop produced over 120 cardboard chairs transforming children’s lives from the floor to sitting up. On feedback forms caregivers noticed how children’s head control and posture strengthened, fine motor skills and eating improved and how other children were much more interactive with a child that was sitting up rather than lying down. Sitting up is such a fundamental milestone for children to be able to progress physically, functionally, and socially. We are proud of the impact our APT workshop has made on children’s lives.
APT chairs and tables made from cardboard provide affordable and sustainable seating for children who need support.
APT tables are useful for developing fine motor (hand) skills through play and activities of daily living like meal times.
Assistive Technology:
Over the last two years, using donations from supporters, POP has brought in and maintained 75 robust standard wheelchairs from South Africa; more than half of those were given to children accessing education. Some of these have been adapted with a simple desk for students to have a table conveniently in front of them. In addition, over thirty wheelchairs have been repaired and recycled from the community and redistributed to children who they best fitted and were suitable for their needs.
The purchase, repair and recycling of wheelchairs has given valuable mobility to children and the opportunity to access education like these students who have both received wheelchairs from POP.
A technician is based at the workshop to ensure students at the Abia High School and Ha Seleso Primary have their wheelchairs regularly serviced and maintained. Using donations POP has supplied the 25 wheelchairs users at these two mainstream schools with self propelling Tuffee wheelchairs from CE mobility to cope with the rough terrain.
Here the POP technician makes a minor repair to ensure the students wheelchair keeps running smoothly,
Enabling Environments & Inclusive Education
As part of enabling the environment and supporting inclusive education POP has provided regular physiotherapy sessions for children with disabilities attending mainstream school at Ha Seleso primary school and Abia High School as well as sporting activities for them to participate in.
POP provides regular physiotherapy and exercise sessions to improve children's fitness.
POP provides sporting opportunities for children to participate in as part of supporting inclusive education.
POP built the first path at the primary school so that girls using assistive devices can access the disability toilets. POP also built the first path at Abia High school so that students can access the centre of the school via a suitable path for wheelchairs. Ramps have been built at both schools to improve access to classrooms. We have marched with schools to raise disability awareness and run training sessions with schoolteachers on the issues surrounding mainstream education, disability, and inclusivity. We advocate for all children with disabilities and their families in the communities we work with.
Proving wheelchairs and building pathways appropriate for wheelchair users at Abia High School are all part of POP Lesotho’s inclusive education initiatives
Enabling environments at Ha Seleso primary through putting in a pathway to the girls disability toilet
Our Team
Our Team
Jan Jeffrey: Volunteer Physiotherapist (MSc MCSP) and Team Lead.
jan@poplesotho.org
Jan is a chartered physiotherapist from the UK and has a MSc in pain management. She has worked for over twenty years in the National Health Service (NHS) in Wales, working in orthopaedics, outpatients and finally for Powys paediatric service. After volunteering in Lesotho working with children with disabilities since 2016, she decided to retire from the NHS at the end of 2021 to become a full-time physiotherapy volunteer.
A former Outward Bound Instructor Jan is a keen mountaineer and watersport’s enthusiast.
Her motto is: Be the change you want to see.
Lintle Kheleli: Occupational Therapist (OT)
As a new graduate of Wits University Johannesburg Lintle is now keen on taking on the challenge of working outside the hospital environment in her home country. With a keen interest in public health POP’s Maseru outreach program is offering her a close-up view of the testing environment children with disabilities and their caregivers encounter every day. Whether she is at the scrapyard collecting cardboard for APT, or trying to find support for a child with severe disabilities living in poverty, it has been an interesting start to Lintle’s career as an OT.
Her motto is: Live to make a difference.
Liteboho Makhele: POP Technician.
Liteboho is a qualified electrician and started working for POP as the technician at the beginning of 2023. Taking courses in APT and wheelchair maintenance and repair he has become an asset to the project in all aspects of assistive technology
He is the coach of the Red Stars handball team and dreams of his team taking home the cup at the end of the champions league.
His motto is: Together we can
Project advisors:
Dr Jemma Wright: Specialty doctor in community paediatrics based in the UK with an interest in global health and neurodisability. Jemma has previous work experience as a paediatric medical officer in South Africa and is a member of the Dolen Cymru Lesotho Health group. She offers comprehensive knowledge of paediatric conditions, particularly from a perspective of her experience of working in a low-resource setting.
Cath Barton: Paediatric physiotherapist with over thirty years’ experience in the National Health Service (NHS) and a special interest in support work and training in Kenya over the last ten years. Cath’s research project for her Masters evidence the benefits of APT devices for children with CP Kenya and has been published in a peer review journal. Cath has given valuable advice to POP, particularly on the construction of APT devices and training programs.
Bec Randell: Head of Service paediatric occupational therapy and physiotherapy in Powys, Wales. Bec has worked in the NHS for 25 years and has a special interest in serial casting and equine therapy. She visited POP Lesotho in 2023 bringing physiotherapy equipment and team shirts for the handball team as well as giving much appreciated support and advice on the outreach program and with CP clinics.
Directors:
Joel Ndonde - Finance Director, jcn@poplesotho.org
Nelson Mensah-Aborampah - Business Support Director, nma@poplesotho.org
Jan Jeffrey - Technical Director - jan@poplesotho.org
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