First Peace Pole in Lesotho at the National Univeristy of Lesotho to advocate and pray for peace.
Promoting Peace is one of Rotary International's areas of focus. Its aim is to prevent and mediate conflict and support long-term peacebuilding in areas affected by conflict. The Roma Rotaract Club made it its mandate to fulfill this area of focus.
Between 2014 and 2017 there was political unrest in Lesotho. Since the Rotaract club was already raising funds to donate to Doctors without borders in Syria because of the ongoing civil war, the world around us seemed gloomy and disheartening. In the midst of this turmoil the Rotaract club, of which I was the President, ventured to plant a Peace Pole on the NUL campus. The success of this project relied significantly on its timing when unrest and turmoil were prevalent. It garnered attention because people were yearning for a message of hope.
A peace pole is a hand-crafted monument that displays the message and prayer, "may peace Prevail on Earth" on each of its four sides, usually in different languages. There are tens of thousands of Peace Poles in 180 countries all over the world dedicated as monuments of peace. They serve as constant reminders for us to visualize and pray for world peace.
The NUL Peace Pole had four different languages on each side; Sesotho and English which are both official languages in Lesotho; Arabic, which is the official language in Syria and finally, Xhosa which is spoken by a small population in Lesotho. Putting all these languages was important because it included all the stakeholders. The Peace Pole was planted during a ceremony that was attended by the university’s Vice-chancellor, representatives from doctors without borders, Maluti Rotary, Gatley Rotaract club, Qiloane Rotaract club, Miss Lesotho, Miss intervarsity, students and University Lecturers and staff.
On this project, I played a key PR role. First, to publicise the event, I represented the club as an interviewee on the national radio station, Radio Lesotho. the aim of the interview was to educate the listeners about the significance of the peace pole with the aim of bolstering the Rotary brand. Also, before the start of the ceremony, I organized and hosted a luncheon for all Rotary delegates and the press. This was done to give the delegates a hearty welcome and to create networking opportunities. Lastly, I was also the master of ceremonies at the event. I ensured that I was graceful while keeping the audience engaged.
Even though we had invited the press from various media platforms, only the national radio picked up our story. The rest of the press that was invited never published the story. This undermined the significance of this historic project on a national level. From this experience, I learned the value of following up on the press.
The peace pole was the first one in Lesotho and the Second one in the Southern African region. The first peace pole in the region is on Robben Island, South Africa. The successful ceremony catapulted the club’s brand to a global scale, an advantage that the club can now use to promote itself and its activities due to the global attention the peace pole commands.
While planning for the ceremony, I had the opportunity of interacting and building relationships with prominent contacts that continue to respect the Rotary brand.