Freda Levson, better known to students of Namibian history as Freda Troup, died in London, aged 92, on 7 October 2004. She was, with her husband, an early and devoted supporter of the late Michael Scott, who first brought to the world’s conscience, through his petitioning at the UN in the late 1940s and 1950s, the Union of South Africa’s perversion of the ‘sacred trust’ of the League of Nations mandate for its rule of what was then South West Africa. The daughter of an eminent Johannesburg physician, whose biography in 1947 (with a foreword by South Africa’s then prime minister, Field Marshal Jan Smuts) was her first book, Freda took on the difficult job of putting Scott’s papers in order when he left for the UN in 1948, and publishing them as In Face of Fear: Michael Scott’s Challenge to South Africa (London, Faber, 1950).
Her dedication in the book was to all ‘displaced people’ in the world, of whom the Hereros, who had first sent Scott to the UN, were, with the Ovambos and Namas who joined in Scott’s petitioning against incorporation into South Africa, the responsibility of the world body. It is signed at ‘Gammans River, South West Africa, 1950’, the dry river bed near the Old Location, Windhoek, where Michael Scott had pitched his tent when clandestinely taking evidence from the Hereros and others.
Freda was one of the white volunteers in the 1952 Defiance Campaign in South Africa, did valuable work in support of the accused in the Treason Trial and later, in England, with the International Defence and Aid Fund. She published also Forbidden Pastures: Education under Apartheid (1967) and South Africa, an Historical Introduction (1973). She maintained, in exile, a lasting friendship with Nelson Mandela and was a supporter of both the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Namibia Support Committee in London. Her papers, donated to Fort Hare University in South Africa, contained many documents about Michael Scott, to whom she had rendered invaluable service in his great work for the Namibian people.
Randolph Vigne
Ethel de Keyser, who headed the Canon Collins Educational Trust for Southern African, died on Friday 16 July 2004 following a heart attack, after a lifetime devoted to campaigning for freedom and justice in southern Africa particularly through her work with the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the UK and Canon Collins Defence and Aid Fund for Southern Africa. To read Lord Hughes of Woodside’s obituary of Ethel, as well as many other tributes, please see the following website: http://www.canoncollins.org.uk/whatsNew/whatsNewEtheldeKeyserObit.shtml
Below are a few of the tributes on behalf of Namibia:
Ethel's generosity was not restricted to ending apartheid in South Africa. She supported the Namibian struggle against illegal occupation through her work at the Anti-Apartheid Movement, as well as through more personal and practical expressions of solidarity.
She took the new young SWAPO representative – Peter Katjavivi, now Namibian ambassador to Belgium and the EU – under her wing, and gave valuable advice on transforming the Friends of Namibia into the Namibia Support Committee (NSC) as a pro-SWAPO solidarity committee in 1974. For Ethel the struggle against the oppression of apartheid was indivisible. But so also were political action and acts of personal kindness.
Later Ethel was instrumental in assisting hundreds of Namibian students get access to educational opportunities which changed their lives and helped independent Namibia establish itself. Ethel never lost her driving determination to make life better for all southern Africans, nor her ability to enlist the support (willingly or reluctantly!) of a vast range of influential people.
The NSC, now once again the Friends of Namibia, have cause to be grateful and thankful for the real difference Ethel made in the struggle to end apartheid and liberate the Namibians. Her vision, determination and sheer hard work are a political lesson to us all.
Thank you, Ethel, from all of us involved in Namibia - we will miss you.
She will be remembered by all those who knew her for her total devotion to the cause of freedom and liberation in Southern Africa. Let her soul rest in peace.
We learnt with deep sorrow about the passing on of our friend and colleague, Ms Ethel de Keyser [who] worked tirelessly for the Canon Collins Trust for Southern Africa in support of the education and training needs of young people from Southern Africa. Many young Namibians benefited from her efforts and support. We therefore join you in remembering her selfless contribution to the development of the people of Southern Africa in the field of Education and Training. May her soul rest in Eternal Peace.
Described by Nelson Mandela as ‘A great fighter for African rights’ Michael Scott is regarded as one of the early champions of resistance against injustice and racial discrimination by many in South and southern Africa, and is particularly remembered by Namibians as the Anglican priest who unflaggingly petitioned the United Nations on their behalf from 1948 onwards, protesting the South African government’s attempt to incorporate their territory and campaigning against the inhumanity of the apartheid system. His activities got him banned by the white regimes of three African countries – South Africa, South West Africa (now Namibia) and Nyasaland (now Malawi) – and in later life he was deported from India for taking up the cause of the Naga people. He also served four terms in prison, one in South Africa for taking a stand on civil rights issues and three in Britain for protesting against nuclear weapons.
In Britain, however, he is now largely unknown and has never received the same recognition as his clergy contemporaries, Trevor Huddleston or Canon John Collins, yet both regarded him as their inspiration, though their relationships were not always easy. Scott was a complex character: a Gandhian exponent of non-violence who trained as a rear gunner in the RAF, a Christian who was often at odds with the church, enjoyed the company of atheists and was a one-time undercover agent for the Communist Party, a modest orator who once held the United Nations spellbound, a handsome but shy and untidy man, who attracted great loyalty and affection from his various circles of friends, while at times also driving them to distraction.
Some of Scott’s story was told in Freda Levson’s In Face of Fear, published in 1950, followed by Michael Scott’s own account of his early years in A Time to Speak (Faber and Faber, 1958) but, though valuable resources, these are limited, not only in the period they cover, but also the scope of what is revealed of much of Scott’s personal life. This new biography was started by Anne Yates, who spent several years interviewing friends and colleagues, accumulating material and sifting through the 100 boxes of Scott’s unarchived papers held at Rhodes House in Oxford, and who was close to finishing a first draft of the book just before her death in 2000. The task of rewriting the book and bringing it to fruition was then taken on by Lewis Chester. The result, The Troublemaker: Michael Scott and his Lonely Struggle Against Injustice, is now due to be published, with a preface by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in March 2006.
A launch will be held at 6.45p.m. on 4 May 2006 at St Antony’s College, Oxford. Refreshments will be provided and all are welcome.
The book, price £16.99, can be ordered from Aurum Press, 25 Bedford Avenue, London WC1B 3AT. Tel: 020 7637 3225; fax: 020 7580 2469; e-mail: sales@aurumpress.co.uk
Derek and Saima Sherratt, members of the Chesterfield Tsumeb Association, made a visit to Tsumeb in Namibia during the month of December 2005. Derek and Saima make this visit every year and, while their primary purpose is for a well deserved holiday, they also take the opportunity to visit the Old Age Home and the Women and Children Centre, both of which are supported by the Chesterfield–Tsumeb link.
Also on their itinerary was a visit to the kindergarten project at Ondundu, a settlement 2 km from Tsumeb. The founder and driving force of this project is Jacky Konjore, a very enthusiastic and energetic Damara woman who is keen for the kindergarten to succeed for the benefit of the children in the area. Unemployment in the region is very high, as many of the residents are former workers at the mines which have reduced capacity in recent years, and so parents are unable to contribute a great deal to enable their children to take advantage of this project. A nominal charge only is requested by Jacky to help her to feed the children a daily meal and provide some equipment. Currently about 30 children attend the kindergarten. If and when the children are able to attend primary school, all the lessons will be in the official language of the country, English, which they would not normally have had exposure to in their daily lives. The kindergarten aims to bridge this gap and so give the children a better start to their educational life.
Jacky and some of the teachers first made contact with a Chesterfield civic delegation visiting Tsumeb in 2003. Since then Derek has set up a support group for the kindergarten in Chesterfield. Funding comes from various sources and one such donation, from the family and friends of Kieron Deeming, an ex-VSO (deceased), enabled the kindergarten to buy and pay the transfer costs on a plot of land on which the school is built together with the surrounding area which is used as a garden for growing food for the children’s meals. The garden is worked mainly by the teachers who grow maize, beetroot, tomatoes and fruit (mangoes, guava, pawpaw, etc.). Derek also helped during his visit by buying some trees and working with the teachers to build fencing around the land. However, even though the kindergarten grows some of the food for the meals, more funding is required.
It is Jacky’s wish is to provide a better building than the wood and tin structure currently used for the schoolroom, which is very hot in the summer but not so warm in the winter. Jacky has contacts with a donor agency in France which has offered £4,000 to build a new kindergarten providing it is built of clay, using local materials.
In addition small grants come in from other sources: the Friends of Namibia Society at the November 2005 meeting agreed to donate £50 towards the kindergarten, and other recent donations include £50 towards building maintenance costs and £50 towards food costs for the year. A £100 donation was also given to Saima Sherratt to fund a party for the children whilst she was there and she was able to provide food and a small gift for each child. Derek and Saima brought back from Namibia £100 worth of craft work which, it is hoped, will be sold not only to raise funds but also to help to create a wider interest in the project.
Jacky Konjore has been invited to Chesterfield on a fact finding and awareness raising visit which she feels would be a wonderful opportunity for her. Providing sufficient funds can be raised for her air fare Jacky would hope to visit at the end of April and into May 2006. She is keen to give talks to spread the word and raise much needed funds to enable her work to continue in the Tsumeb area for the children.
Derek Sherratt
VSO is working in Namibia to improve the quality of education in four educationally disadvantaged regions through both delivering a service to learners and increasingly building the capacity of teachers. By means of a combination of teacher training roles (46%), direct teaching roles (25%) and other support roles, VSO has been able to provide about 15,000 pupils with a quality education in English, Maths and/or Science. Bryony Black writes about her time as a VSO Maths teacher in Namibia. (This article comes from the VSO website: www.vso.org.uk.)
Someone came to talk about VSO when I was doing my PGCE, and I realised that it was exactly what I wanted. I could live abroad but not as an ex-pat, and work with people who haven't had the same opportunities as me. I decided to wait till I had a bit of experience first, so I taught in England for 5 years before heading off to work as a maths teacher/trainer based in a secondary school in northern Namibia.
My typical day began at 7am, when I generally taught 4 lessons. I was responsible for an entire cohort of International GCSE candidates (IGCSE), which consisted of 3 classes of 36 students. After break at 10am, I would head off to one of 8 schools to observe lessons and to work with staff on any teaching problems. I often found that teachers were required to teach topics that they themselves didn't fully understand. Once a term I held a training workshop at my school for the local teachers. I also became involved in circuit (about 40 schools) and regional training with another volunteer. This involved organising workshops on a larger scale and doing training work with ‘facilitators’ (local teachers who were identified as strong maths teachers to assist their colleagues). During my 2 years, I also set up a running club and a music club, so my afternoons became quite busy with extra-curricular activities.
I lived in a bungalow with another volunteer. It had 3 bedrooms, a kitchen, lounge and bathroom. There was running water but no hot water. We washed using a washing up bowl in the bath, but apart from that life was not too different from home. Apart from the constant sweeping of sand out of the house, the ants everywhere and the battle to keep the mosquitoes out! My only warning to future volunteers is that they need to be ready to live with anyone!! You can't choose your housemate, and you just have to get on with it.
The ability to work and live with anyone is one of the strongest and most useful skills that VSO will give you. I also gained management skills from organising workshops and I now feel confident that I can cope in any situation. The VSO training was excellent! I found it very useful and thought provoking, particularly the teacher-training course. I took the notes from that course with me to Namibia, and they were invaluable in setting up my training programme.
The highs of my experience include taking a group of 50 learners for their first ever trip to the sea; a teacher actually using my suggestions in the classroom; singing with my music group at the local hospital and getting to know so many new people.
There weren’t many lows really. It was a challenge, but I enjoyed all aspects of it! Although I did struggle at times to work out exactly what the needs of the local teachers were. I also had to work hard to ensure that people were not threatened by my presence. Oh, and hitching into town in 40 degrees heat on the back of a truck only to find that I had no post!
I believe that my greatest impact was on the students. I recently got the results of my grade 12 learners who took the IGCSE. They all passed. Usually there would be about 30 grade 'U's out of 100 students. I feel that I helped the teachers with my training and built up their confidence. But I saw my students change from silent listeners who did not really expect to understand, into questioning thinkers who really felt that they could achieve something.
I am now back in the British classroom, working as head of maths in a multicultural school in central Sheffield. It has been a bit of a culture shock!
These are two more items from the VSO website about initiatives with people with disabilities in Namibia:
VSO and National Federation for People with Disabilities in Namibia (NFPDN) launched their EU-funded Disability Programme in Oct/Nov 2004 in Windhoek. The programme aims to build the capacity of both NFPDN and individual Organisations of People with Disabilities (OPDs), as well as working with ministries, especially the Ministry of Lands, Resettlement and Rehabilitation, to support people with disabilities to fully participate in Namibian society.
The EU is funding a 5-year project aiming to enable people with disabilities (PWDs) living in five of the most disadvantaged regions of Namibia to participate fully in society and access basic support services. These people are amongst the poorest in the country; disadvantaged both through the country’s huge wealth inequality and also through lack of awareness or inclusion of PWDs in everyday life. The project aims to achieve this through strengthening Namibia's organisations of people with disabilities (under the umbrella of the National Federation of People with Disabilities in Namibia), by building public awareness about disability with national and local campaigns and by creating platforms for PWDs to advocate on rights and opportunities.
VSO volunteer speech therapist Orna Otto (who works for the Association for Children with Language, Speech and Hearing Impairments of Namibia - CLaSH), with two of her deaf colleagues, Rakkel Ndilenga and Padelia Namundjebo, and VSO programme staff completed in 2004 a sign language instruction video for families of deaf children.
It is the first video of its kind and represents an extremely valuable resource, since before now schools for deaf children in Namibia have had to rely on South African signing videos, even though there are significant differences between sign languages in these countries.
Hans van der Windt, VSO’s capacity-building facilitator in Namibia, described how this unique video came about:
Together with CLaSH, Orna's employer, we took the initiative to produce a video with 400 Namibian signs. We chose a list of words consistent with stages of children's language development, known as the Makaton list.
The list starts with ‘mother’, ‘father’, ‘house’, ‘dog’, ‘cat’ and ends with ‘rainbow’, ‘crocodile’ and ‘hyena’ (we are in Africa after all!).
We built a small studio in a back garden, borrowed a camera and recorded the signs. Orna's colleagues are the sign instructors and I did the editing on a laptop.
We are grateful to the British High Commission in Windhoek who provided a grant to cover production costs.
The video is in VHS format, lasts an hour and a half and is available at VSO’s Information and Learning Centres in Birmingham and London. Copies can either be watched at the Centres or are available on loan for a week. For further details email: infoservices@vso.org.uk.
The Namibia High Commission has a list of schools in Namibia which would like to have a link with a school in the UK. If you know of any school who might be interested in following this up, please get in touch.
At the AGM held November 2005, the following members were elected to the Executive Committee of the Friends of Namibia Society: Margaret Lipscomb (Chair), Trevor Stone (Vice Chair), Mary Stead (Secretary), Elizabeth Welsh (Treasurer), Sarah Adams (on behalf of the Manchester diocesan link), Ann and Ryn Brandse, Jean Burns-Thomson, Willemina Morton, Sarah Nancollas, Derek Sherratt, and Tony Stevens.
Among those who attended was a visitor from Namibia, Venancius Rukero, who runs a home in Windhoek for orphans and vulnerable children, especially those infected with HIV/AIDS. A former street child himself, Venancius told the meeting of his work at the home, which aims to advocate and fight for the rights of these children in society, as well as caring for their day to day needs, and providing opportunities for their education and training.
The Namibian High Commissioner, His Excellency Mr Ringo Abed, who took up his post in London in 2005, gave a short address. This was followed by an informal gathering when there was an opportunity to meet some of the other new members of staff at the High Commission, including Ms Hedvig Kahepako Tjituka, the new First Secretary.
There are two main events planned for 2006: a meeting to inform ourselves about the land reform issue in Namibia and a forum on HIV/AIDS in Namibia. Further details will be circulated as and when they are available. However, if you are interested in either project, please contact us. We are particularly anxious to involve people who have worked on or had experience of AIDS related projects in Namibia, so please do get in touch if this applies to you or you know of someone to whom this applies.