Lebone Talent and Skill Incubator

Through aptitude testing, social-emotional learning and mentorship in virtual and augmented reality, Lebone Talent and Skill Incubator instils self-knowledge and indispensable soft skills which are vital for children who sell in the streets to survive socio-economic challenges and therefore be competent workforce. It can also benefit other vulnerable children world-wide.

Lebone Talent and Skill Incubator (LTSI) empowers future solvers, as we call them, these are Lesotho children within the age group 7-17 that sell in the taxi ranks after and during school hours. LTSI also serves to disseminate knowledge and skills between them and the privileged children.

LTSI’s premise is that the ability for future solvers (FS) to thrive in the 21st century lies in the knowledge, understanding and development of their own capabilities, character, aptitudes, feelings and motivations, hence it blends tools that nurture self-knowledge: Johnson O’Connor aptitude test and social-emotional learning (SEL).

 Johnson O’Connor put it this way, “An individual who knows his own aptitudes and their relative strengths, chooses more intelligently among the world’s host of opportunities.”

However, knowing aptitudes and their significance is not enough for FS; to help them resist socio economic barriers, LTSI, through SEL, instils determination, resilience, sound decision-making, communication skills and other indispensable soft skills. LTSI develops a coaching package that meets specific needs for each future solver.

Additionally, through a peer to peer mentorship program, MyBuddie, each FS is paired with a privileged child from a developed country who has similar aptitudes and is the same age. The Buddies (pairs) synchronously share skills, ideas and experiences on a social virtual and augmented reality platform. LTSI invites schools and companies in developed countries to form resourceful clubs in which primary and high school students become members and participate in MyBuddie under the guidance of an adult. MyBuddie not only develops inspirational leadership but also activates invention and innovation when Buddies explore their totally different cultures together.

LTSI can be replicated to rescue talents of millions of other vulnerable children in developing countries whom wars, poverty and disease have left hopeless, therefore enabling those to be competent workforce and achieve self-actualisation.

Lesotho, second in the world with HIV/AIDS prevalence rate, has about two million people and 57% lives on less than US$1 daily. El Nino has left many households food insecure forcing more children to sell in in the streets for survival. World Vision best puts it here; http://www.wvi.org/article/el-nino-deepens-impact-children-lesotho-sell-stones-survive-0. LTSI finds these children heroic; they resort to street vending instead of stealing. However, it will not be long before socio-economic challenges leave them with fear, depression and low self-esteem resulting to drug abuse, early child marriage, sex work and human trafficking, making it even harder to break cycles of poverty. 

As a high school student, I sold in the streets with my little brother. Wearing torn shoes and old clothes, people always had their demeaning opinions, the only thing that anchored me was knowing that I was an A student and would encourage my brother that our experience and best grades would one day pay off. However, majority of children who sell in the streets are not A students, nor do they have siblings that motivate them. On the other hand, they have different natural abilities which they need to discover and hold on to, get moral support and succeed.

LTSI develops talents of children who sell in the taxi ranks instead of stealing when struck by poverty, it empowers them to be solvers of even bigger challenges in their lives, communities and globally. There will be three fully resourced centres and trained coaches in the capital city and one centre per town where beneficiaries know their aptitudes; how to use them when making lifelong and career choices. Beneficiaries identify problems in their communities, use their experiences at LTSI to find solutions and through continued mentorship, they will turn those into lucrative businesses. They are resilient and determined to succeed.

Beneficiaries take Highlands Ability Battery tests, understand their scores and know how to use them to make informed choices. - Knowledge of aptitudes and their significance

The number of solutions that turn into successful businesses and organisations. - Social innovation

Number of beneficiaries who continue with the incubation and selling or are joining other ventures at the beginning of the year. - Resilience and motivation

Most of new technology is afforded by the few elites in Lesotho; by the time poor households afford it, it is outdated and newer one is trending. Poor households cannot afford quality education where a child’s natural abilities are nourished therefore not presenting her to various opportunities. This gap widens as technology improves drastically. Our solution gives the world’s poorest equal chance to latest technology and time-tested expensive methods, something that has been lacking for past generations; for the first time, technology can benefit the poor and the rich while also pulling the poor from bounded rationality.

Our solution allows interaction of less privileged people with technology as opposed to eliminating them, jobs are created; coaching is done by trained coaches to beneficiaries, peer to peer mentorship happens between people and the less privileged are benefiting more from it. Technology is used only as a platform.

LTSI works with schools to find about children who sell in the streets, students also mention their peers who have dropped out of school. Parents and guardians of prospective beneficiaries’ sign permission letters. LTSI asks for secure government buildings or land where they will put fully furnished immovable spacious containers, these are the centres. Free of charge, permitted beneficiaries come to the centre once a week for a two-hour coaching session. During long school vacations, they come twice a week and participate in MyBuddie for a four-hour visit. They will sometimes participate in camps aimed at building a certain skill.

Having four coaches certified by Highlands, a company that owns Highlands Ability Battery, LTSI will offer aptitude tests to companies’ employees and privileged students for a cost. Being the first in the country to offer this service, it has high possibility of doing well. The robust source of income will be an aquaponics farm that will sell organic vegetables and fish. Again, this will be the first farm of this kind in the country. The farm will free of charge be used as a learning platform for future solvers who are interested in marine life, ecosystems and aquaponics .

Lack of resources; human capital (expertise), money capital, furnished centres

Lack of connections; LTSI needs to find schools and companies with whom to partner for MyBuddie program

We definitely need to partner with community leaders and change makers with resources mentioned above, expertise and mentorship.

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