<p style="text-align: justify;">This article examines the ethical dilemmas that are specific to qualitative research methodology. These dilemmas concern the issues of withdrawal from the study, anonymity and confidentiality, which are discussed. Each aspect examines how it was dealt with using the researcher’s reflections. The research was positioned within an interpretive paradigm and used the small scale qualitative research design in one rural and one urban contexts of Lesotho. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to select the participants from the larger population. Using a semi-structured interview guide, participants were interviewed individually while others were engaged in focus group discussions. A lesson learnt is that ethics in methodology, when conducting research in an African context, do not always follow what is proposed in the Western literature. It is recommended that a context should be considered when applying ethics in qualitative research studies in Africa since some ethics in research are context-specific.</p>

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The high mortality rate among Lesotho's younger generation, caused by disruptions such as chronic illnesses and other socioeconomic and cultural changes, has led older adults to become caregivers. This paper reports on the experiences of older adults regarding their caregiving role during times of disruption. It further reveals how older adults have learned about their role as caregivers. Adult learning theories were reviewed and used to interpret the results of the study. The interpretive paradigm using a qualitative approach was used with 25 older adults, who were purposively chosen. Their responses were filled in a questionnaire with open-and close-ended questions, whereas five community leaders were purposively selected and interviewed using a semi-structured interview guide. The results reveal that older adults learned about caregiving roles in non-formal ways, with health education issues disseminated in a workshop by community health workers. On the other hand, other older adults indicated that they learned informally through awareness raising campaigns held by community home-based caregivers and volunteers from various non-governmental organisations. The results point to the compromised well-being of older adults as a consequence of the burden of caring for their grandchildren with little or no resources to perform such caring roles. It is recommended that a holistic approach to build the capacity of older adults be used. This will empower older adults to participate in self-help groups and income-generating projects, and it will train them in vocational skills and knowledge alongside caregiving issues.

This paper analyses one aspect of a pan-African action research project called ITMUA (Implementing the Third Mission of Universities in Africa)1 . This particular paper draws on the data from that project to explore the National University of Lesotho's contribution to lifelong learning in its communities. It provides background information on the ITMUA initiative and analyses interview and focus group responses to two case studies in terms of their contribution to lifelong learning. It uses, as its analytical framework, a modified version of Mbigi's (2005) African perspective on the four De Lors ' (1996) 'pillars', by adding a fifth pillar, courtesy of Torres (2003). The paper argues that community engagement is a two way process between universities and their wider constituencies with opportunities for mutual lifelong learning. But there are also challenges of understanding and process which must be addressed if the full range of these lifelong learning pillars is to be accommodated within African contexts.The paper provides an introduction to the history of community engagement in Africa as a university mission, followed by a brief discussion of lifelong learning within African perspectives. After describing the particular context of Lesotho, the concept of community service and community engagement in contemporary African contexts introduces the action research project and the case studies. The final part of the paper presents and discusses the research findings.

Crime prevention is everyone’s responsibility – law enforcement officers, community members, social groups, businesses and governments who all need to be sensitized about prevention strategies for ensuring community safety. Interpretive paradigm was used within a qualitative research approach. We adopted a descriptive research design. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect data from all the participants that were purposively chosen. Six crime prevention officers, that were selected using snowball sampling, were individually interviewed. Data were further collected from twenty-eight members of community policing forums in three focus group discussions and six members of the inner council in the fourth focus group discussion. Qualitative thematic analysis was used. The findings revealed that some community policing forum members abused their skills and knowledge to commit crime than fight it. The findings demonstrated that community policing is effective in reducing crime. However, it transpired that the forums faced several challenges such as: lack of airtime to make calls, lack of incentives to motivate members, female members experiencing difficulty at night because they were afraid while others were not released by their partners to go to work. Although the community policing forums enhanced social change towards crime in various communities, there are negative implications for women serving as members of the forums.