4/3
This week our resource PCVs were awesome. They probably knew how much we didn’t want to be in the classroom so they planned various field trips for us pretty much all day Monday. Our first stop was a visit to a youth center in Five Rand that was in the process of being built. (Side note: Five Rand is an area in Okahandja that gets its name from the price you used to have to pay in order to stay there. Rand is South African currency.) The youth center was so inspiring. The workers that painted the walls and made the bricks by hand are all local people living in Five Rand who received training on how to do these various jobs and now will be able to get other jobs because of this training that they now have. Once the youth center is finished being built, there are a few projects that will be going on. For one, there will be a room for a library where youth can check out books and read. Many Namibians don’t read for pleasure, so it was really great to see this initiative. Another project in the works is an art studio. A group of women will make clay beads, fire them in a kiln then sell them for profit at a few local craft centers. What really makes my heart sing though is hearing that these projects create a relationship so that peers can teach other peers how to make the beads or how to tend to the garden for example. It was just so empowering!
Our next stop was The Ark, an orphanage in Okahandja. Although they called themselves an orphanage, it seemed more like an after school program for OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) to me. Their philosophy was that it was better to educate the OVCs’ families on how to raise the child rather than The Ark taking care of them. At least then, the children would have a family that raised them. The children’s ages ranged from 7-14 and had the biggest smiles on their faces. The program itself is through Christ Hope International (a ministry working for HIV/AIDS prevention and abstinence based programming). For me, it was really unsettling hearing that their program was abstinence based and yet they were also teaching HIV prevention.
Our last stop was to the Garden Cafe, which is a cafe run by Americans who also run a training program at their cafe. Funny enough, the owners of the Garden Cafe used to work for The Ark before opening up their own cafe. For PCVs, the Garden Cafe is a Godsend. There’s high speed internet, real American food and milkshakes. All the comforts of home. They even baked us Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies and brownies! So sweet :) A lot of us have been frequenting the cafe these last couple of weeks for lunch or even just to check out email so it was cool to hear more about their training program. With the 50% unemployment rate in Namibia, free training is hard to come by. So the owners of the Garden Cafe decided to create a training program that would teach customer service and restaurant service. After people complete the 10 week training program, it makes it a little bit easier to find a job.
This week our resource PCVs were awesome. They probably knew how much we didn’t want to be in the classroom so they planned various field trips for us pretty much all day Monday. Our first stop was a visit to a youth center in Five Rand that was in the process of being built. (Side note: Five Rand is an area in Okahandja that gets its name from the price you used to have to pay in order to stay there. Rand is South African currency.) The youth center was so inspiring. The workers that painted the walls and made the bricks by hand are all local people living in Five Rand who received training on how to do these various jobs and now will be able to get other jobs because of this training that they now have. Once the youth center is finished being built, there are a few projects that will be going on. For one, there will be a room for a library where youth can check out books and read. Many Namibians don’t read for pleasure, so it was really great to see this initiative. Another project in the works is an art studio. A group of women will make clay beads, fire them in a kiln then sell them for profit at a few local craft centers. What really makes my heart sing though is hearing that these projects create a relationship so that peers can teach other peers how to make the beads or how to tend to the garden for example. It was just so empowering!
Our next stop was The Ark, an orphanage in Okahandja. Although they called themselves an orphanage, it seemed more like an after school program for OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) to me. Their philosophy was that it was better to educate the OVCs’ families on how to raise the child rather than The Ark taking care of them. At least then, the children would have a family that raised them. The children’s ages ranged from 7-14 and had the biggest smiles on their faces. The program itself is through Christ Hope International (a ministry working for HIV/AIDS prevention and abstinence based programming). For me, it was really unsettling hearing that their program was abstinence based and yet they were also teaching HIV prevention.
Our last stop was to the Garden Cafe, which is a cafe run by Americans who also run a training program at their cafe. Funny enough, the owners of the Garden Cafe used to work for The Ark before opening up their own cafe. For PCVs, the Garden Cafe is a Godsend. There’s high speed internet, real American food and milkshakes. All the comforts of home. They even baked us Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies and brownies! So sweet :) A lot of us have been frequenting the cafe these last couple of weeks for lunch or even just to check out email so it was cool to hear more about their training program. With the 50% unemployment rate in Namibia, free training is hard to come by. So the owners of the Garden Cafe decided to create a training program that would teach customer service and restaurant service. After people complete the 10 week training program, it makes it a little bit easier to find a job.
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