Reintroducing myself to the Informative News audience in 2024
“I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
Ezekiel 36: 26-27 (NIV)
“Watch closely: I am preparing something new; it’s happening now, even as I speak,
and you’re about to see it. I am preparing a way through the desert.
Waters will flow where there had been none.”
Isaiah 43:19 (The Voice)
Happy New Year all you precious Informative News readers! It has been a tortuously long minute since I last wrote my eponymous column for this newspaper. By the sheer grace of God Almighty, this year, our bicentennial year, I am back! Yasssss! Glory, glory, glory!
I begin with a few disclosures, the most important being that I have since discovered that I am Neurodivergent. YAY! I celebrate this because all this time I did not know this and this is my 48th year on this rock called Mother Earth. I honestly thought that I was just like the next person…in many ways, I am very much like the next person and, in some significant ways, I am not and that is perfectly okay ladies and gentlemen.
The thing is, I was born in 1976…which black parent, do you know of, at that time, or in those 70s, 80s & 90s epochs, was taking their child for tests that would establish their neurodiversity? Exactly. That said, I thank my Heavenly Father for these revelations, no matter how, to the naked eye, “late” they are…God is always on time ladies and gents so, 2023 was the year He had ordained, before the foundations of the world were laid, for me to fully reckon with my mental health issues and neurodiversity.
I am, proudly, a Mental Health Advocate, not just an Admitted Advocate of the High Court of Lesotho. Mental health experts abound and specialities include, but are not limited to, neuroscientists, psychiatrists (I recently heard of “neuropsychiatrists” man alive!), psychologists of all types and stripes, social workers, pastoral care counsellors, clergy, educators (those with an emphasis on educational psychology), sociologists, et al. That said, I have since established that there is also a less often talked about shamanistic aspect to certain mental health conditions and we should approach this topic with all due humility since it is less explored and written about. There are mysteries that only Elders like Chief Mohlomi, the GOAT of coaching and mentorship at the global level, could have unpacked for us. Chief Mohlomi is my tantalum standard for coaching and mentorship. I have studied a number of coaching and mentorship methodologies out there. I am an accredited Thomas Psychometrist and UCT-trained Industrial Sociologist, amongst other things, and, as we kick off this bicentennial year of our Lord 2024, I am here to state that, Chief Mohlomi, King Moshoeshoe’s coach and mentor, knew far more than all these journals and tests put together.
But worry not child of the soil, there are a few credible academics who have delved into Chief Mohlomi’s healing and leadership legacies including Dr Sean Maliehe, Dr Khali Mofuoa, Professor Max Du Preez and Dr Ntando Sindane. Yours is to Google their works and read!
That said, I am back to explore issues revolving around our economy as a Modern Nation State which was founded in 1824 by our esteemed and renowned Founder and Chief Mohlomi’s mentee, King Moshoeshoe I. Not only was our Founding Spiritual Father a master tactician, statesman, and diplomat of note, but he was also an economist who governed our economy astutely. These are the stories that need to be told and I shall, through this platform, trace our economic prowess to further back than 1824 and, along the way, dispel some internal and external perceptions about “us” and our story. We do not know who we are…if we did, our collective conduct, our collective mindsets (mindsets around family, community, entrepreneurship, governance, economic policy, foreign relations etc), our collective dialogue, would feel, smell, and sound, differently. Our collective outcomes would be a lot different. Our collective expectations of those who govern us would be a lot different.
In this 200th year, by the grace of God, we shall be retracing our steps and finding US.
Mothepa Ndumo is a Legal Academic at the National University of Lesotho, a Pension Law Scholar in the Faculty of Law registered for a PhD focusing on the domestic investment of pension funds, a Thomas Psychometrics Practitioner, an Industrial Sociologist and Certified Executive and Leadership Coach. She is an Alum of the National University of Lesotho, the University of Cape Town and the University of Namibia.
Advocate Ndumo is the Founder & CEO of the Tataiso-Bhotani Group which has interests in corporate training, accredited coaching and mentorship and film, TV series, talk shows and publishing across multimedia platforms. Her passions are Lesotho, Afrika, indigenous systems of governance, history, young people and she is a lover of animals and of The Creator.
Mothepa Ndumo writes in her personal capacity.