Okahandja has it's share of street kids, like most towns in Namibia have. A few of them really live all by themselves on rubbish dumps, scavenging whatever food they find there. Most of them, however, have some kind of place they call home, where they can go to sleep. Yet during the day they are left to fend for themselves as their parents, if they still have those, attend to their respective low paid jobs or other activities and cannot look after their kids, never mind pay for any kind of day care. Many of the parents suffer from TB and alcohol abuse.
Yet Okahandja also has one woman who opened her heart to these kids. At her mothers home she started cooking meals for those kids. Since she herself is a single mother of four without means, she lobbied for donors to help with supplies for the food she cooked daily. The group of kids quickly grew to more than 80 and she had to find her own place. She bought 4 stands from city council in 2010 and is in possession of their deed of sale. City council, however, then went and resold those stands to someone else. This case is handled by lawyers at this stage. City then offered her an unserviced stand to pacify her. She paid for that but cannot use it unserviced. Then she was given the right to buy another serviced stand which is zoned as residential, for which she paid N$10000. She put up a crude corrugated iron shelter as kitchen,office and bedroom and went on feeding and caring for the kids until the city council allowed a brick maker (SWAPO supporter) to start his operation on her stand. This endangered the lives of the kids she cared for and made her question the integrity of city councilors when allocating stands.
Belinda //Garoës is an activist for truth and transparency in government. She informs people of their rights and lobbies against irregularities in city council. She started fighting for her rights by moving to an empty stand in an adjacent area, seeing that anybody can settle down wherever he wants these days ( Article 21/1(h)) and many informal settlements thus pop up everywhere around our towns. She promptly got harassed, mishandled, beaten and arrested together with her son for doing this. In the van she found a box with stuff and some matches (which should not have been there), so she put the box on fire to make them open the door so that her son could escape out of the van. Then she was sued for damage to state property and incarcerated in the pretrial facility in Okahandja. She was released five days later, after having paid bail. Her trial date is set for 8 May 2014.
All our news media are run by SWAPO, the ruling party. Of course their reporting is biased and finely tuned to reflect their views. Only at the very end of their story they mention the deeds of transfer in Belinda's possession. No one trying to publish the truth will be accepted, as I have experienced repeatedly now and documented on this blog.
Fact is that only SWAPO members count for anything in Namibia today. They get jobs, they get houses, their settlements are serviced, their schools and day-care centers are supported. All others fight in vain for their rights as Namibians.
Yet Okahandja also has one woman who opened her heart to these kids. At her mothers home she started cooking meals for those kids. Since she herself is a single mother of four without means, she lobbied for donors to help with supplies for the food she cooked daily. The group of kids quickly grew to more than 80 and she had to find her own place. She bought 4 stands from city council in 2010 and is in possession of their deed of sale. City council, however, then went and resold those stands to someone else. This case is handled by lawyers at this stage. City then offered her an unserviced stand to pacify her. She paid for that but cannot use it unserviced. Then she was given the right to buy another serviced stand which is zoned as residential, for which she paid N$10000. She put up a crude corrugated iron shelter as kitchen,office and bedroom and went on feeding and caring for the kids until the city council allowed a brick maker (SWAPO supporter) to start his operation on her stand. This endangered the lives of the kids she cared for and made her question the integrity of city councilors when allocating stands.
Belinda //Garoës is an activist for truth and transparency in government. She informs people of their rights and lobbies against irregularities in city council. She started fighting for her rights by moving to an empty stand in an adjacent area, seeing that anybody can settle down wherever he wants these days ( Article 21/1(h)) and many informal settlements thus pop up everywhere around our towns. She promptly got harassed, mishandled, beaten and arrested together with her son for doing this. In the van she found a box with stuff and some matches (which should not have been there), so she put the box on fire to make them open the door so that her son could escape out of the van. Then she was sued for damage to state property and incarcerated in the pretrial facility in Okahandja. She was released five days later, after having paid bail. Her trial date is set for 8 May 2014.
All our news media are run by SWAPO, the ruling party. Of course their reporting is biased and finely tuned to reflect their views. Only at the very end of their story they mention the deeds of transfer in Belinda's possession. No one trying to publish the truth will be accepted, as I have experienced repeatedly now and documented on this blog.
Fact is that only SWAPO members count for anything in Namibia today. They get jobs, they get houses, their settlements are serviced, their schools and day-care centers are supported. All others fight in vain for their rights as Namibians.
Very concerning.
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