Kefiloe Sello Lesotho 2012 Grantee South African Program
Kefiloe is a PhD Candidate in Environmental Humanities South at the University of Cape Town. Her research focuses on water commodification and how the relationships of humans and non-human species change as water becomes a commodity. This research addresses the devaluation of the relationship of people and water in the landscape they live in as water becomes commodified and contrasts that devaluation with the value attributed to water commodified by neoliberal economic policy. In addition to being a MMEG recipient, Kefiloe was a Wenner Gren Foundation recipient from 2016 to 2020.
Kefiloe is passionate about women and children, especially a girl-child. Coming from a country where until recently, a woman was considered a minor, she wants to lay a foundation for women to be empowered through policy, education, and innovation. Thus, she co-founded a foundation that specifically deals with girl children in Lesotho, putting them through school and providing mentorship for them throughout their high school years.
Kefiloe has also seen how climate change affects women more than men, and in an attempt to make better lives of women in her community, attended the United Nation University to equip herself with knowledge and better understanding of Sustainable Development Goals and the UN system. She also co-designed a course on Water and Society for the universities of Cape Town and Aarhus.
