Malepota Mafeka: A Driver of Change
Maseru 2 December: The Gender Links family learned of the passing away of Malepota Mafeka on 30 November with devastation, shock and great sorrow. Winner in 2013 of the GL staff award for exceptional performance, she was, in the words of one of her favourite songs, “simply the best.”
We extend our heartfelt condolences at this time to her son, Lepota, daughter Mamakhoa, and husband, Matona Mafeka, as well as all those who knew and loved this remarkable woman. The best we can all do now is carry on her unfinished work, in the way she would have done.
A Driver of Change who worked tirelessly with her small team of staff to take gender equality to every one of the ten districts of Lesotho, Mafeka joined GL as country manager three years ago. During that time, she raised funds from the EU to make the Lesotho office semi-autonomous. She expanded the work of the Centres of Excellence for Gender in Local Government to over thirty councils in all parts of the country.
In March 2013, Lesotho held its first successful SADC Gender Protocol@Work summit under Mafeka’s able leadership. Winners from this national event, aimed at showcasing good practices in achieving the 28 targets of the SADC Protocol on Gender and Development, went on to participate in the regional summit in Johannesburg, where Lesotho excelled.
Over the last year, Mafeka also managed the Violence Against Women Baseline Study that will result in the first comprehensive information on VAW in Lesotho to be used in benchmarking progress towards achieving the SADC target of having gender violence by 2015.
Through the excellent links that she developed with the local government and gender ministries, Mafeka helped Gender Links to forge a unique model of working with government. For every COE that GL worked with, the Provincial District Gender Officers worked with at least one more. This “each one teach one” approach made it possible to expand the programme in a cost effective and sustainable way.
With 49% women in local government, and the high degree of ownership for the COE’s that aim to promote gender responsive governance, Lesotho has become a model in the SADC region that GL is documenting for replication in other countries where it works. This is Malepota Mafeka’s giant footprint. She will be honoured by Gender Links at a memorial service in Johannesburg in January, where we will name one of our conference rooms in her honour.
In this same room in April 2013, Mafeka received the award for best all round GL staff member, following nominations and voting by her peers in several categories such as fund raising, innovation, financial management and team player. In the words of GL CEO Colleen Lowe Morna, “Mme Malepota was herself a Centre of Excellence. The best way we can remember her is to emulate her quiet and effective diplomacy; her humility; her hard work; her dedication to the cause of gender equality.”
The following are some of the comments made by her peers when she received the award for Exceptional Performance:
TEAM PLAYER
Malepota is outspoken, soft and humble, but knows how to manage her office; she has been doing amazing work in the mountain kingdom within short space of time! Every time bookings for HQ staff are made for workshops in Lesotho, Malepota truly has great hospitality and assists in all logistical matters. Were necessary and beyond. She managed to groom women in Lesotho. She is responsive and provides right information. She is willing to assist at any given time with all the work outstanding. Mme Malepota is a team player, helpful to all departments and has shown great results in her own department. She has grown to understand GL work very quickly and Lesotho is exemplary. Malepota assisted the media work during the 16 Days of Activism. We had a media literacy graduation at the university. She assisted with printing the programme, doing payments to service providers. She also attended the event. During such a busy period, Malepota saw it important to be the face of GL at this event.
INNOVATION
Even though she is new Mme Malepota has really shown how innovative she can be, she has managed to do a lot in the year that she has been with GL. She has proven on so many occasions that she is by far the best innovative manager. Innovative in delegation to execute tasks, collect M & E and carry out governance work. Innovative in relations with partners. Working through local government to get results for GL programmes. Mme Malepota has brilliant ideas for the governance team.
RESOURCE MOBILISATION
Malepota has proven that she is able to gather resources in an efficient manner. She also has a very integrated approach to making sure that she works well to save GL resources. She is also very good at gathering in country support resources and that has helped the governance team a lot. The way Malepota has mobilised the partners she works with in-country and is working with the GFPs from the gender ministry is really inspiring.
FINANCIAL ADMINISTRATION
The Lesotho office under the guidance of Malepota submits complete documents that meet GL policies and donor requirements on time. There are usually few queries with the Lesotho financial documents as they ensure that supporting documents ranging from quote comparison, reconciliations of expenditure and detail like council the stage are indicated. Lesotho office staff work as a team and when you have queries you can call on either of them and will get all assistance you need with very low turnaround time on queries raised.Lesotho has set high standards on the documentation that they accept as authentic.
May her soul rest in peace. Tsamaea le molimo