Omuhonga is a village located in northern Namibia, just 60km south from Angola and 120 km from the nearest town, Opuwo. This is probably one of the most unique, wild and hidden land across Africa, where people still living in tribes and the modern world influence has not polluted their ancestral traditions.
In Omuhonga Primary School 208 students from three different tribes coexist: Himbas, Zembas and Hereros. Despite the opposition of the parents to bring their children to the school, the number of the student of the Omuhonga Primary School has being increasing exponentially from the beginning at the same speed as resources and needs.
One of their biggest problems is water shortage. The lack of rain and the high temperatures convert this region in a dry area where the rivers only carries sand and building a well is a real challenge.
In Omuhonga there is only one communal well that works with solar energy. The closest well is located 10 km far, so the school shares this water with the rest of the village and hundreds of livestock and usually there is not enough water for everyone.
One of the daily homework of these kids is to spend one hour walking to the well and bringing water for the school in bottles, buckets or any other container that they can find. If they are lucky and the trough is full of water, they can do their laundry or even wash and refresh themselves.
• The first objective of this crowdfunding project is to provide the school an exclusive 24 hours water point. The school has been granted by Namibian government with some money to buy a diesel generator, but that money is not enough to cover the cost of the whole generator and it’s not a sustainable solution. Fuel is expensive and the budget would be sufficient to make it work for a limited number of hours, but not enough, so the problem of the water shortage will remain. With the collected money, we will buy a more powerful pump and a second solar panel able to provide enough water for all school needs.
The second big problem is the food. Daily budget for food is 20 cents of euro per student, so children only eat the same food twice per day: a maize porridge cooked with maize flavor, water and a bit of sugar. This is enough fill their tummy, but not to cover the nutritional needs of growing kids.
• For this reason the second objective of this crowdfunding project is to provide the school with enough resources to build a long term sustainable food project that provide the children a balanced diet. Currently the school has designated an area to create an orchard and another one to keep small animals like chickens, rabbits and pigs. The lack of water and resources prevent to do it. Once the water source is working, the aim is
1. Plant a garden: buy seeds and fertilizers and build a drop irrigation system, and teach children to preserve it.
2. Riding a farm: build a wooden enclosure to keep the farm and buy the animals. Just with a small production of 50 eggs a day we could reach the proteins they need for children their age.
ABOUT US
We are just two lucky Spaniards who have managed to escape for a few months of our daily routine, but overall, we consider ourselves lucky to be born in a society that provide us all the resources needed to build our promising future. We are aware that many places of the world are not as lucky as we are and therefore we fell responsible to spread our knowledge acquired in our modern world and contribute to compensate the huge inequalities that we have on the planet.
Like most of the people, we love to travel, but we don´t like just to look at the world through the window of a car. We want to approach the people of the places where we travel to as much as we can to know them better. We also believe it is possible to travel in a solitary way by sharing knowledge, so both sides will take advantage. Our reward is the experience at this school, which helps us to understand the reality around us outside our comfort zone in our modern world. They will get new ideas to solve day to day problems, through education and the development of long term sustainable projects. We don’t want to give them fish, we want to teach them how to fish.
• Angeles Rabadán
• Javier Martín
WHY YOU SHOULD HELP US
Because it is not fair that a child, just because he was born in a small African town like Omuhonga, has so limited access to resources and such a little hopeful future.
WHERE YOU CAN FOLLOW US
Through our facebook page and our crowdfunding website, also through our social networks.
CROWDFUNDING: https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/food-for-kids-omuhonga-school
FACEBOOK: Okuhepa Project
FACEBOOK: Omuhonga Primary School
Post time: Jun-18-2017