Five Minds Pty Ltd is a dynamic young farming group who, after 18 months of support, are sponsoring orphaned students to attend school.

Growing Five Minds

In a relatively short period of time, the five local youth became a registered company, Five Minds Pty Ltd and began to scale their earlier subsistence vegetable farming. SALP invested in crucial water infrastructure, including a borehole, piping and water tanks, solving the group’s earlier challenge of unsustainable access to water.

As the group’s vegetable production began to bloom, SALP supported Five Minds to diversify into egg production by funding the construction of a chicken shed and the initial purchase of 1,500 chicks. It wasn’t long before Five Minds found themselves managing daily egg production alongside their vegetables.

Five Minds group member Hlokomelang Leeu knows too well the challenges young people face in achieving their dreams. Leeu was the first person in his family to go to university where he gained a diploma in journalism.

Lineo and Liteboho

Komiti Rabolinyane, SALP coordinator for the Maphutseng region, has been working closely with Five Minds since the project started and was impressed by their success.

Komiti learnt about a pair of sisters from the local area who had recently lost their grandmother, their last living family member. Komiti shared their story with Five Minds and encouraged them to think about giving back to the community by supporting the girls’ school fees. It didn’t take them long to decide what to do, group member Sello recalls.

“We concluded that we as Five Minds, we are going to make sure that students are receiving paid exam fee and school fee so that she can achieve her own dreams.”

Soon after, Five Minds began sponsoring sisters Lineo and Liteboho by paying their school fees.

Lineo and Liteboho live together in a small single room on the outskirts of Mohale’s Hoek town. The sisters both attend St Patrick’s High School and are in senior grades. Waking up in the early morning they get ready for the day and head off for school as the sun is peaking over the mountains that ring the town. The sisters arrive well before class to attend extra study sessions to keep on top of their subjects and prepare for exams.

Older sister Liteboho hopes to one day become a biologist while Lineo dreams of studying nursing. The path for the sisters to achieve their dreams won’t be easy; however the support they receive from Five Minds is the greatest opportunity they’ve had to achieve the goals they’ve set for their future.

“I can take this as a blessing to me and my younger sister.” - Liteboho

Five Minds looking to the future

Five Minds is doing their best to enable other local youth to succeed. [not sure if this sentence fits but could be integrated as it focuses on the social outcome of their enterprise, not just the business of making money.

Over the past 18 months World Vision Australia and Australian Aid has been supporting 52 groups to diversify and commercialise their production.