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The South is the less favoured half of Namibia.
It is drier than the North and, having a smaller,
scattered population, it attracts less government
attention. But it is the main scene of two
endeavours by the Rössing Foundation (the
social development arm of Rössing Uranium)
which have together won the Worldaware Award for
Social Progress. These are the Maritime Training
Centre at Lüderitz and the crafts development
programme focused on Gibeon in the South and on
Okashana and Shankara in the North.
The village of Gibeon, deep in a stony waste by
the dry Fish river, is a strange relic of South
African rule. Founded by the Witbooi clan who
resisted German colonisers, it also became home
under the apartheid system for Nama people from
elsewhere. It offers little opportunity for its
5,000 population to make a living.
But Gibeon Folk Art has enabled 26 women to earn
700 Namibian dollars ($130) each per month. (The
average income of other women in the south of
Namibia is N$O-200 a year.)
With the help of Karin le Roux from the
Rössing Foundation, the folk artists have
developed a style of appliqué work and
embroidery, using Nama imagery and humour, which
can be exhibited and sold – through the foundation
– at home and abroad.
Ingrid Gamathan, who chairs the group, was
invited to join artists from all over the world at
a workshop early in 1994. With a basketmaker from
the Oshana region, she also attended the German
Namibian Cultural Festival in Bremen in June. She
had never been out of Namibia before and says the
experience was fantastic.
In Northern Namibia, where the makalani palm is
common and women weave baskets from palmstrands,
about 20 people sell their work through the
Rössing Foundation’s Okashana centre (and also
direct to the public). About 30 sell through the
Shankara centre on the Angolan border where new
beadwork has appeared, using traditional skills. In
all, these foundation projects have involved over
300 craftspeople while over 400 have taken part in
basket competitions and workshops.
The foundation says it realised, after Namibia
became independent in 1990, that it needed to help
rural people earn income. Men commonly leave home
for work, and so women have to provide for their
families and pay school fees. One way to help was
to promote craft skills, which had received little
attention. This could also help promote Namibia’s
cultural heritage.
The foundation is also engaged in trials for
propagating makalani palms, to ensure that
basketmaking does not denude the landscape. It is
surveying the crafts of Namibia, with funds from
USAID. It took an exhibition, Rural Art in Namibia,
to Norway, Denmark and Finland and will be taking a
similar exhibition round Namibia’s schools and
training colleges.
The
Rössing Foundation runs several adult
education centres, and the Maritime Training Centre
at Lüderitz was initially one of them.
However, almost everyone working in the port’s main
industry, crayfish, was South African. In 1986, the
foundation and two local employers offered a course
for local people to acquire the skills to work on
fishing boats. This, with a motorman’s course for
seagoing engineers, has enabled 250 Lüderitz
people to get fishing jobs.
Then a major fishery company, Irvin and Johnson,
and other organisations including two fish
factories offered help and gave valuable equipment.
After a visit by the Norwegian ambassador, Norway
provided aid to the Namibian government for the
Lüderitz centre, which gave up its other
courses and reopened as a maritime training centre
in January 1993.
It now offers courses for fishing-boat skippers,
fisheries inspectors and motormen and in
firefighting, first aid, radio and electronic
navigation. Over 180 people took part in courses in
1994.
In 1990, Jonas Titus, trained at Lüderitz,
was the first Ovambo-speaking Namibian to become
skipper of a fishing boat. Elie Elia first joined a
literacy class. He got a job on a fishing vessel
through the centre and is now mate on a lobster
boat. Demtara William is one of very few Namibians
to pass as a motorman grade I. He now works on a
trawler at Walvis Bay.
The Lüderitz centre plays an important role
in the fishing industry, one of Namibia’s success
stories. The cold Benguela current encourages fish,
and independent Namibia has managed to reclaim this
resource from foreign boats and rebuild it after a
pre-independence free-for-all.
The foundation says that the Lüderitz
centre’s ability to give skills to Namibians
promotes prosperity and raises the standard of
living for many people.
Meanwhile, the non-maritime courses started at
Lüderitz continue. The sewing teacher
continues to run sewing classes, with machines on
permanent loan. The national literacy programme has
taken over literacy. A former foundation employee
employs several women on screenprinting, with
foundation-donated equipment, and a crafts project
also helps several people earn an income.
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