R
osa Namises is a Namibian politician and human rights activist who has made selfless contributions to the lives of many Namibians, young and old. Rosa played a heroic role in Namibia’s liberation struggle – even enduring torture.
She is a former member of parliament and a founding member and former Secretary General of the Namibia Congress of Democrats. Rosa is a prominent voice on gender issues, human rights violations and violence against women and children in Namibia. She is the Director of Women Solidarity Namibia and founded the Dolam Residential Child Care Centre for vulnerable children.
home with a little girl, it was the weekend. On Sunday I said ‘tomorrow is Monday, everybody must go back to their homes, so let’s take this child back.’ They were hesitant. We drove to a house, I knocked on the door and a person came out. I said ‘I brought your little girl home’, and they said ‘no, go to the back’. But there was just an old car wreck.
Mothering a nation:
Rosa Namises
This is her story. MYD: Let us start at the beginning, tell us about yourself. I am a child of the old location, I was born at the time of the second forceful removals and I experienced that.
MYD: What would you say we can do to assist Namibians today? How could we help to heal?
I remember it vividly, then as a little girl and again as a big girl. It seems like I was born, we lived there and then we were removed. My father is from Angola and my mom is Namibian, I also think my birth tells quite a lot about me. MYD: How did you start the Dolam Children’s Home? I left parliament in 2010. I think the Dolam Children’s Home is a way of paying for privilege. I don’t say we have money or many things but I think we, me and my children, were a bit privileged. My mom and my dad had a home. When my mom passed on, my siblings and I had a grandmother’s home. I was working at the Catholic Church doing a lot in development work and I saw what was happening, so I thought it was important to have this place. One day the girls came
The child was living there. I couldn’t leave her. I took her to the social workers and they said, ‘can you please keep her for us and we will come back to you,’ but they didn’t come back. It was in 1999 when Dolam Children’s Home started in Katutura and we have managed, basically, to provide shelter and education and then just to stand in as a mother, to listen and be with them. It is a challenge. The children are coming from a very traumatised background. I see the impact of that trauma, how it really works and this whole story of peer pressure, poverty and absent fathers in the family home. I have seen it playing out.
recognised as human beings.
We all have light within us. In some the light has darkened. Those of us who still have light of compassion – compassion will kill this pain. It can be done in different ways. One way is to be friends with those out there, who are in those dark places. Another is to create spaces where they can come and just be people,
Rosa’s story is part of a series celebrating Namibians in partnership with Master Your Destiny. Read more in the MYD Journal at: www.issuu.com/99fm/docs/99fm_myd_ book_2018
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