“The fact that he is coming here really illustrates the strong bond that has been developed between Springfield, the Wittenberg community and Lesotho,” Wittenberg Professor Scott Rosenberg said.
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Rosenberg began taking an interest in Lesotho during a mission when he was a part of the United States Peace Corps. Lesotho is one of the 30 poorest countries in the world, Rosenberg said, and the king is a constitutional monarch, meaning he doesn’t have any real governmental power.
After serving in the Peace Corps, Rosenberg became a professor of African history at Wittenberg and since 2003, has taken an average of 30 Wittenberg students a year to Lesotho to do service projects, working mostly with orphans and HIV-positive children.
The Wittenberg group usually stays in the country for about a month.
“We go into schools, do education paintings for schools that not only don’t have books but don’t have chalk or chalkboards,” Rosenberg said.
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Lesotho also has a hunger problem that some Wittenberg students have worked to address, Rosenberg said, sending 370,000 meals to Lesotho over the years.
“We put together our own nonprofit called the Lesotho Nutrition Initiative,” Rosenberg said. “We pack and ship meals containing protein, vitamins and minerals that has been proven to not only stop but also reverse the effects of malnutrition.”
The group hopes to ship another 40,000 by the end of June, he said.
The Springfield Rotary Club also has worked to assist the country and its people, Rosenberg said, sending volunteers and working on several projects in recent years.
Rosenberg and a group of Wittenberg students met with King Letsie III during their last trip to the country, he said. The king was kind, the professor said, and wanted to discuss hunger and poverty at length with him and the students.
Students who have made it their mission to help the country over the past four years are happy that King Letsie III will come to campus.
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“Lesotho has really become a part of Wittenberg’s culture,” he said. “I think it is the combination of Wittenberg’s projects and Springfield’s projects that caught the attention of the king.”
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