This event was attended by the King of the Ondonga Traditional Authority, His Majesty King Kauluma, and the Minster of Education, Honourable Nangolo Mbumba as the key note speaker for the event and all required and relevant stakeholders. The event for the coastal Math and Science Centres inauguration took place in August 2009 in Arandis. The official inauguration was officiated by Honourable Asser Kapere in his capacity as the Chairman of the National Council and a member of the Rössing Foundation Board of Trustee. Information about the entire history of the Rössing Foundation was also availed to the public during the event in Ondangwa and is also available on the Rössing Foundation website, a brief synopsis follows bellow. Thirty years in perspective The Foundation was set up in late 1978 as a legal trust to provide greater educational opportunities by imparting practical skills to Namibians that would create better economic opportunities for them, particularly in rural communities. Since 1978, the Foundation has spent more than N$ 120 million in various programmes to this end. During this period, the Foundation's activities have shifted and adapted to change in circumstance and fortune and evolved, constantly moulding itself to the needs of it host nation and the communities it served. Starting in 1979, the Foundation has gone from teaching basic skills such as reading, plumbing, auto mechanics, needlework, basic health care, smallscale agriculture, seamanship, conservation, arts and crafts and communitybased conservation to becoming more focussed today on higher educational requirements like the teaching of mathematics, science, English and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills. Since human expectations shift over time, so the Foundation has evolved by means of trial and error and changed from a practical training facility to being at the cutting edge of a developing nation like Namibia by assisting with the development of higher education. One of the projects of the early years, the upgrading of teachers' skills, stands out and has evolved to a point where teacher development is part of the national education system. Furthermore, the Foundation's plan was to reach as many needy people as possible. Some plans worked while others did not and out of six communitybased food-producing projects launched in the early to late 1980's, only one at Ogongo eventually succeeded, but a valuable principle was established from this experience: For a project to work and become self-sustaining, the intended beneficiaries have to take ownership of it. If however, the community was not fully involved with a given project, there was little an outside agency could do to help. Success depended largely on people wanting to help themselves and the Foundation therefore avoided the cultivation of the "handout" mentality that has so often plagued development work. One of the main guiding principles of the Foundation is that for a project to have lasting benefits, training has to be needs-directed and this is only effective in the long term if the training is offered in close proximity to where the needs are. A prime example of this is the Luderitz Maritime Training Centre established by the Foundation which has now moved to Walvis Bay and which became an autonomous self-funding institute in 1994 when the enclave was returned to Namibia. Having evolved with the needs of community based projects, the Rössing Foundation has become a pioneer and international trendsetter in what has become known as communitybased natural resource management (CBNRM). With the CBNRM programme, the Foundation's CBNRM unit provides training and facilitation support to conservancies working closely with the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and other facilitating NGOs, support agencies and Namibian Community-based Tourism Association (NACOBTA) and other government departments involved in rural development. The CBNRM Programme aims to link sustainable socio-economic development to the conservation and management of natural resources in Namibia which requires the development of information, knowledge and skills in the area of community empowerment and organisation. This also includes skills like natural resource monitoring, implementation of appropriate natural resource management systems and skills to handle them, establishment of a natural resource management infrastructure, applied ecological research, socio-economic research, market research and enterprise management skills. Under the Namibian Association of CBNRM Support Organisations (NASCO), organisations collaborate to respond to the institutional and technical needs of community-based organisations or similar structures. The Foundation further continues to render its assistance with regard to tourism and related skills training, the development of crafts, exchange of information and of course last, but not least, creating awareness of and sharing CBNRM success stories in Namibia. To highlight all that the Foundation has done over the past thirty years would fill a whole book, which has indeed been done, these are but a few achievements mentioned which stand out from the many. Over the past thirty years, the Foundation has moulded itself to the needs of the Namibian nation and whatever the future brings the Foundation will be there to give a strategichelping hand. Current good fortune has meant that the establishment of an Endowment Fund will become a reality and even if Rössing closes its doorsone day, the Foundation will remain forever in the hearts of the thousands of people that it has assisted in helping themselves. |
