Graff Opens Charity and Leadership Center in Lesotho
March 11, 10 by Edon Ophir
Graff, seen here holding a $50 million diamond he polished from a
gem mined in Lesotho, wants to give back to the Kingdom's people |
Laurence Graff opened the first Graff Leadership Centre in Lesotho last Saturday, complete with training facilities for children, youth and adults in programs that will teach pre-employment skills. The center works in conjunction with Graff’s new F.A.C.E.T. (For Africa's Children Every Time) charity in Lesotho.
Lesotho is home to the Letseng Diamond Mine where Graff sources many of his diamonds. The charity is meant to function as a ‘fund of funds' to raise money for the education, health and wellbeing of the children of Africa. The second floor of the new center provides a hostel for 50 young girls in a leadership program meant to develop peer leaders in their villages.
Graff has donated $1 million to launch F.A.C.E.T and plans to continue to support the organization with further donations.
“We would like to give something back to the country which gives us our remarkable diamonds. There is such appalling poverty and hunger in Southern Africa, yet with more help from donations the situation will begin to improve,” Graff said.
The tiny mountain Kingdom of Lesotho, completely landlocked inside South Africa, has the world’s third highest incidence of HIV/ AIDS. One of the poorest countries in the world, 63 percent of its population is under 24 years of age with a life expectancy of 37 years. In parts of Lesotho, the percentage of children who are orphaned can reach 40 percent.
