in loco fellows’ blog series #1

My name is Palesa Rapolo and I’m a 2017 graduate from Limkokwing University having graduated in Interior Architecture. I just completed my first month as a fellow in the eight-month in loco program by rise. My first month into the program has been inspirational, educational and fun. The atmosphere in the office is incredible, I get to go to work and do one of my favourite things in life, work while listening to dumb jokes and having a good laugh.

One of in loco’s goals is to train its fellows to be successful entrepreneurs, so for the first week we had a series of business training sessions where I learned to stop using money or capital as an excuse of why I can’t run my own business. We had a series of guest speakers who were truly inspirational. They shared with us their journey of how they started out to get to where they are right now. One of them named Malefetsane Mohlomi, said he started out with just his laptop and his mind. That really got me thinking, ‘why haven’t I? Who am I not to be successful? But then everything happens in its own time, I’ll tell my story someday.

My favourite part has got to be the participatory design workshop, not only because of the food, but most importantly what I got to learn from it. Going out to God’s Love Centre (GLC) and getting to know the people we are going to be designing for and hearing from them what they wanted instead of assuming we know what’s right for them. The sad part is that we can’t meet all their needs, but I hope that what we’ll give them will make a huge difference.

My second favourite part is definitely the trip to Morija, one of Lesotho’s most important historical and cultural sites. Morija has some of the oldest buildings such as the first Evangelical Church. I came back with a lot more appreciation for traditional methods of construction, and I’m definitely looking forward to going back there again.