The lights are on at Ehomba School in Africa!
We have just returned from Namibia and have had a wonderful trip. A very significant proportion of the funds we raised last year have now been invested in the school and every dollar that we have raised has gone into the project and has gone a very long way.
You would all have been highly amused if you could have seen us arriving at Ehomba in the same vehicle that I travelled in on the 2007 Intrepid Travel documentary. We were a group of eight: my darling and ever patient Burton, our daughter Anna and her boyfriend Andrew, our son Ben and his girlfriend Chelsey and our very good friends and fellow Trustee Gary Green and his wife Mary. George, our guide who had travelled with me in 2007, had literally taken the truck apart so he could get a photocopier in. We also took rugby, soccer, netball and volleyballs as well as hula hoops, skipping ropes and many, many reading books of different varieties, laptops and projectors, food and many other treats for the children. Ben had commissioned 5,000 pencils and pens with Ehomba School written on them and you would have thought that we had given them a treasure in offering these children a pencil with their own school identity written on it.
We had an amazing few days at the school and with many, many special moments. One morning at an early assembly they insisted that we put the two flags that we have taken for them, a new large bright vibrant Namibian flag and a New Zealand flag together which we hoisted up the flagpole, which is kindly left in the school yard courtesy of the South African Army. These children addressed this flag with great reverence, and it touched my heart as I watched those flags rise against a beautiful Namibian morning sky { school starts at 7am and we were there on time!}. A significant number of them were in bare feet, had only had one meal a day and their state of clothing was much less than the poorest child in New Zealand would experience, and yet their hope and pride was obvious to see.
The Infrastructure
A comprehensive solar energy system is now in place, and the school buildings and the dormitories for the children, plus the kitchen area now have electricity. They also now have a photocopier, facsimile machine, computers and projector now available to use in the six classrooms on the Ehomba site.
We are also in the process of reviewing the water supply at the school, with a view to establishing an irrigation system in a 60 m x 40 m fenced off garden area. Water is a big challenge and at present the school has only one tap with limited water pressure that supports not only the school but also some of the surrounding community so this goal of a garden is an ambitious one. The spring that feeds the water supply for the school, and the well associated with it has not been repaired for some time, however we have a big team of experts and officials in Namibia focusing on this and I am hopeful that we will get it resolved shortly.
The children and teachers
The children are a complete joy, they expect so little and whatever you do for them they are almost overwhelmed in appreciation. The title for pupils in Namibia is “learners” and this is a very apt title as their keenness and enthusiasm for learning and engaging with new things is second to none. We have also been impressed with how capable the teachers are and are very optimistic that through further support and encouragement significant modernisation of teaching techniques can occur to the benefit of the children’s English, which is the official language in Namibia, as well as their local dialects.
Of the 139 students who are at Ehomba School, 56 of them are either orphaned or what they call marginalised children, mainly due to HIV/Aids, or for one reason or another do not have their own parents as their guardian. I completely admire the Principal of the School who works so closely with these families, and he and his wife effectively offer pastoral care to at least one third of these children. All but about 20 of the children live at the school from Sunday night to Friday at lunchtime, and about 23 of the students stay over most weekends except in term holidays because it is too far for them to walk home and then walk back each weekend. The fartherest away student walks just on 40 kms to school, and it is not uncommon at all for the students who attend school on a weekly basis to walk up to 20 kms home at the weekend where they stay for just over 24 hours and then walk back again.
It is very clear that some of the talented students as they complete grade 7 potentially deserve to be offered a scholarship to go to one of the best schools in Windhoek to complete their secondary school education and potentially go on to a tertiary study. We are currently looking into this and feel that it is an important way for us to demonstrate the value of schooling.
We left the children with all sorts of vibrant teaching material, photographs of themselves, a cup to compete for in terms of their soccer, vibrant pictures on the walls and all sorts of other nice positive opportunities to enrich the learning environment, however the basic nutrition of the children is still an obvious deficiency, and so the water and subsequently a sustainable garden is our next phase of development.
Wildlife and conservancy
Over the winter, the ongoing conservancy program in the northern parts of Namibia has seen the release of wildlife including giraffe, kudu and zebra. This had been a highlight for the children, who all had stories of seeing the animals drinking at the river. The Namibian Government is trying to balance off traditional pastoral farming techniques with the semi nomadic Himba people, and re-establishing the vibrancy of the conservancy. I have hopes that cultural and eco tourism, along with pastoral farming may be a possibility in this area. There are several significant mines and also some hydro activity and with some astute leadership and management within the Government, it is possible that a viable economy over and above subsistence farming might emerge and one in which the educated students of the Ehomba School may be able to contribute to the future success of their region. Certainly that is my ambition.
Namibian support
We met with the Minister of Education while in Windhoek and he hosted us to the Windhoek A&P Show which I must say an extremely positive experience despite my scepticism. Agriculture in Namibia, despite the arid nature of the country is extremely successful, and the quality of the cattle we saw there would grace any New Zealand A&P Show very successfully. There was also all sorts of innovation in terms of utilisation of limited water resource, shade cloth techniques, trickle irrigation and hydroponic farming to name but a few.
While in Namibia, we also discovered is that while Ehomba School is the hub school of a cluster, there are another 450 students in 10 satellite schools that surround the hub school of 139 students. So our family is slightly larger than we thought, but the potential to help more children in this northern Namibian region is very real. The Government seems extremely enthusiastic and committed that having acquired a partner and having made such significant investment in educational assets in the school that they are committed to leveraging this both in protecting these assets but also seeing that they service them and fund the operating costs of them for the benefit of the students, the school and the wider cluster.
Next steps
We all feel privileged to be associated with this project and amazing group of learners and teachers and to be able to help some children in Africa directly. There are many other challenges in the health and nutrition area that we have hardly even scratched the surface on, but we feel as if we can see a pathway forward and we remain very committed to doing what we can.
We hope that you will remain interested in this project and if you would like to make a further donation or support the scholarships or water projects please email burton@jsnz.com
In the meantime, with warm regards,
Jenny Shipley
