Physical Health Namibia Project #17897

Education, Nutrition, Health and Safety to 60 Kids

by Mammadu Trust

Education, Nutrition, Health and Safety to 60 Kids

Project Report | Aug 16, 2021
A Difficult Time in Namibia

By Deidre | Project Leader

As the rest of the world is also seeing it, Namibia has been hit with a spike in COVID-19 cases. It touched home when a staff person from Mammadu was confirmed as positive. Thankfully, she has fully recovered, and no one else got it. We have been very diligent to follow the rules set forth by the government, even though we know what that means- the children may not have regular meals, they are not schooling consistently, their families may be losing their jobs, and the livlihoods of everyone are at stake.

During this last quarter, the Khomas region in Namibia (which is where Mammadu is located) has seen a spike where the cases were exceeding 1400 per day. This is a lot for us because Namibia is not densely populated and has just over 2.5 million people in total. Beause of this, Mammadu became a hub for the community and our services changed a bit. We no longer provided schooling and food to just our students, but we had to broaden our scope to support the families of our students and the community as a whole. As you can see in the picutres, we put together bags of food and passed them out regularly.

In our most recent lockdown, Mammadu's cook was making food and those who needed it would come with lunchboxes to get a "take-away" meal. At some point, the students who attended private school were allowed to come to Mamamdu to take classes via Zoom (using Mammadu's internet). They adhered to strict social distancing, wore masks, and sanitized regularly.

As of Mid-July, the President of Namibia opened schools again for students to attend in-person. We will welcome the children back with open arms, but will still adhere to strict guidelines to keep everyone safe and healthy. We know schooling is important long-term, but nutrition is most important in this moment because it could mean the difference between life and death for our students and their families.

We know that times are tough worldwide, so we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts for the prayers, donations, and other means of support that you all provide. We are truly grateful!

Stay safe and take good care of those around you!

Our wonderful Cook, Meme Dina, serving food bags

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Apr 2, 2021
Happy Eastern

By Agnes Albrecht | Founder and Member of Mammadu Trust

Sincere regards to all my dear friends

We are all fine in spite of the Covid regulations still operating in Namibia. Now there is already talk about the arrival of a third wave. As can be expected, we have the South African Covid variant in this country. China has generously donated vaccines which however have not been approved by the WHO., which is a pity. At present only high-risk groups of the population are being inoculated.

This year Mammadu unfortunately does not have a pre-school class in the mornings. We only have the kindergarden group and of course the school children in the afternoon. Many schools now run their own pre-schools and prefer that the children in these classes are then already registered and directly admitted into school for the following year. For us the main reason is however that we do not have volunteers and therefore not enough staff to run two classes in the morning. This is with compliments from the pandemic!

We have all become grandparents. Sara was born at the beginning of the year. She is such a miracle and our little princess. Her teenage mother has not only grown up but has also become friendlier and more self-assured. Sara has already visited us at Mammadu several times. Thankfully her mommy is back on the school benches and we are of course very happy about that.

Our swings have sadly seen their last days and understandably the playground as a whole is run down after 10 years of hard wear and tear. The heavy rains we had this year have added to the damage. Now we have to decide whether to make repairs or rather re-build everything, because the children are using it for hours on end every day. Big hugs from all of us and a Happy Easter with hopefully lots of chocolate eggs!

Birthdays at the pool

Our first grandchild

The little ones of 2021

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Dec 16, 2020
At Last

By Agnes Albrecht | Founder and member of the Mammadu Trust

Warm greetings to all my dear friends

At last this year is drawing to a close. Recent weeks have brought many beautiful as well as less pleasant surprises.

Josia had to undergo quarantine for almost two weeks because his school recorded one positive Covid-19 case. Thank God he tested negative.

There were protests and demonstrations at Augusto’s school as the school was accused of racism. Of course the press blew up the story. Augusto commented that all this was actually not true, but due to the fact that elections were around the corner one political party had decided to hold a march in front of the school premises.

Once again there was a fire at Mammadu, but it was not serious: it was only the dry grass and a few tyres of the sports field that caught fire. As usual the fire brigade arrived late; Meme Dina, Meme Arisa and neighbours had already extinguished the fire.

In fact, the fire brigade is always late, also on election day. Mammadu was again used as a polling station. Unfortunately, one of huts in the shanty town on the hill caught fire, a gas bottle in it exploded and the mother sadly was not able to rescue her child. A real tragedy. Thank God there was no wind, otherwise the entire hill would have burnt down.

We will all be grandparents soon. One of our girls is pregnant, her baby being due in January. Yes, yes, I know she is still so young. When I heard about it, I could have strangled her, but what can one do!? We all still love her and just hope that the birth will go well and that she will continue her schooling. In this regard the Ministry of Education announced that 3300 learners fell pregnant during lockdown and that 27000 learners did not go back to school after the easing of the restrictions.

Our little ones of the pre-school received their reports and I hope that they will be able to enjoy a happy and healthy first year at school in 2021.

Our older ones organized a lovely Christmas play. Benjamin was a real treat as Father Christmas even though his costume, Made in China, fell to pieces almost immediately. Everyone was groomed and dressed in their best party outfits. Afterwards the boys grilled for us and we had cakes to celebrate Lukas’ and Javazas’ birthdays.

This year we did not have our usual excursion, not because the reports weren’t good enough, but because we unfortunately did not have anybody to accompany us. It is simply impossible for one person only to look after so many kids. We however spent a whole day at the swimming pool instead and will make up for the excursion next year.

Our teenage girls attended a self-defence course against rape. Hopefully they will never have to apply this skill, but it is certainly better to be prepared. In fact, I believe that this should form part of the general school curriculum.

Thanks to the generous donations of Gondwana everyone received Christmas gifts this year.

On behalf of all of us at Mammadu I wish you a blessed Christmas, hopefully in the company of family, and a great start to the New Year.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT AND LOVE

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