King Letsie III of the Kingdom of Lesotho Visits Turnbull School

On December 1st, 2009, International AIDS Day, the King of Lesotho, Africa, was the honorary guest at an assembly of over 600 at Turnbull School.  The event was part of a personal trip His Majesty made to Ottawa for the sole purpose of thanking the many supporters of Help Lesotho, a local charity that has helped over 9,000 orphans youth and grannies over the past five years.  Founder, Peg Herbert, has engaged many Canadians to help those left behind in Lesotho, after AIDS has resulted in 40% of the children being orphaned.

Turnbull School chose to support this charity as part of its global awareness and caring commitment.  Children here learn how to care about others across the world who they will never meet but who they can have a dramatic effect on, through letters of friendship, money for school fees, uniforms, school supplies or support to the grannies left to raise the young orphans.  An added benefit is that Canadian children learn to appreciate how much they have and not to take things for granted.

Turnbull School was given the honour of hosting 16 other schools for an assembly that saw the King’s procession led by two Turnbull student flag bearers, Patrick Wells and Megan Oliver, while accompanied by the Turnbull African Drumming Circle.  Ninety one children in the choir then sang “Give a Little Love” to launch the assembly, followed by emcees, Frannie Sobcov and Adamo Young, confidently addressing the assembly and taking the audience through the various components. The assembly ended with reps from each school presenting the King with pictures, letters of friendship, and messages of continued support.  These were packed into the King’s “memory suitcase”. King Letsie III then made an inspirational speech (see below for quotes).

Here are links to interviews with Turnbull students, news reports and articles:

Global National News report re King's visit to Turnbull School.

Shirlee Engel's blog at Global News about our school assembly for the King.

CBC Radio interview with our two emcees, Frannie Sobcov and Adamo Young, and teacher, M. Carriere.

Metro News:

Other events during King's visit: