Paleng – Place of Stories is a registered Non-Profit Organisation (NPO, 198-590).
In January of 2022 Paleng was approved as a Public Benefit Organisation (PBO, 930073423).

Thank You

Thank you for your interest in helping Paleng on our mission. We deeply appreciate any donation that you may be able to offer. You are investing in the lives of rural children who are the future. Without children who have the skills to grow into independent adults and make solid contributions to their communities, we as a society, have nothing. This, in the end, is where the impact of your donation/funding is really made and felt – not the books nor the libraries, but with the children.

We have a good track record of book production and distribution, and we generate detailed and comprehensive reports for our funders. We have also conducted an in-person survey with children, parents, and teachers in our valley and district which assessed the impact of our books and related activities.

Paleng’s outputs thus far include:

• 16 children’s books: 15 bilingual (English and Sesotho-Lesotho) and 1 in Sesotho-Lesotho only.
• A bilingual (English and Sesotho-Lesotho) fold-out number card
• 16 Book Festivals held in different regions of Lesotho and attended by a total of over 1000 children
• Over 20 000 Paleng and 7000 Book Dash books distributed directly to children across Lesotho
• 4 libraries set up in rural Lesotho communities
• COVID-19 related resources, including a book, masks, and educational posters

Your funding will help us realise our goal of reaching out and achieving similar outputs in rural communities in other parts of Lesotho, and creating more books. We are constantly receiving requests for books for older children in Grades 4 to 7, and from communities further afield.

Funding Options

You get to choose what aspect of Paleng your contribution funds.

Specific funding options are divided according to our greatest needs. Alternatively, you can decide to give a general amount for us to allocate as needed. See below for our banking details and reference codes for EFTs.

Our priority at Paleng is always creating books and getting them to children. Funding for BOOK PRODUCTION covers the writing, illustrating, translating, design, and printing of new books. We also need to reprint existing books on an ongoing basis.

BOOK DISTRIBUTION funds will go towards transporting books from the printers to rural areas in Lesotho. Helping us with this cost will make sure that the books reach their destination. This allocation also includes the running of our Story Festivals, which are essential for distribution.

Funding is also needed for LEARNING RESOURCES. This includes much needed stationery that we hand out to children at Story Festivals and the printing and distribution of posters that encourage reading. These are designed to be put up in classrooms and other communal spaces.

Last but not least, we keep our overheads as small as possible, but we require funds for RUNNING COSTS too! These include mobile credit (airtime), fuel, school visits, networking, etc.

Should the funding amount not reach the necessary threshold for specific costs, we reserve the right to allocate the funds at our discretion.

Banking Details

Standard Bank, South Africa
Account name: Paleng Place of Stories NPO
Account type: Business current account
Account number: 371 566 983
Universal branch code: 051 001
Swift code: SBZAZAJJ

Reference Codes

• To contribute towards general funding, use GENERAL as the payment reference
• To contribute towards book production, use PRODUCTION as the payment reference
• To contribute towards book distribution, use DISTRIBUTION as the payment reference
• To contribute towards learning resources, use RESOURCES as the payment reference
• To contribute towards Paleng running costs, use RUNNING as the payment reference

Funders

Aside from a handful of generous individuals, our two current major funders are Solon South Africa and Rahula Trust (England). We are exceptionally grateful to these two organisations and we look forward to future fruitful partnerships.

Please contact us if you would like to discuss funding.