Physical Health Namibia Project #40489

Educate 20000 Namibian teenagers on HIV using Arts

by Ombetja Yehinga Organisation

Project Report | Jun 9, 2021
A still precarious situation

By Philippe Talavera | Director

Noordoewer youth group performing

As you know, the Ombetja Yehinga Organisation (OYO) is a Namibian NGO that uses Arts to create social awareness. 2020 had been very difficult, and we were all hoping 2021 would be a little easier. But the year started slowly. Thanks to our trusted partner Horizon we could at the beginning of 2021 work with a youth group in the South of Namibia and tour them in schools, talking with learners about COVID19 but also offering counseling and guidance – many learners felt unsettled after last year’s poor academic performances and were scared to be back in school. The tour was a great opportunity to reconnect with them. We could reach 2,724 people and all the schools visited were grateful for the project.

No performances with the dance troupe could be scheduled before early June 2021 so the team took this chance to train new trainees. It had been a long time since we had the time to properly train trainees, so we tried to turn the situation to our advantage. Also, slowly but surely the planning for the dance troupe started to fill up for June, July and September. We negotiated a project with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany and another small project with STAFE via the French Consulate in Johannesburg.

End May however as the dance troupe was about to go on tour regulations changed again. It was decided to proceed with the tour to the Kavango regions, as everything was set in motion. This region had experienced in 2020 a huge increase in teenage pregnancy and school drop-out due to the lockdown and closing of schools (522 teenage pregnancies and 4,426 school drop-out in Kavango West and 520 teenage pregnancies and 2,951 school drop-out in Kavango East – amounting to 29% of all teenage pregnancies in the country and 24% of all school drop-outs). It was therefore felt it would be very important to reach out to learners and offer education and counseling.

Unfortunately, other activities have then been canceled – raising lots of concern for the future of the dance troupe and the organization. The current COVID situation in Namibia is not good, with hospitals getting full. We have currently little visibility regarding what we will still be able to do. There is a lot to be done – yet activities reaching small amount of young people by small amount of young people are time consuming and more expensive. We are committed to continue making a difference and our team is more than ever going the extra mile. Funding is, however, a problem.

The little-by-little fundraising campaign in March didn’t yield good results – understandably as many of you also struggle finding your balance in the current environment. We will however continue asking you to help us reach our goals by encouraging friends and colleagues to support us. Our link is still: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/using-arts-educate-4000-namibian-teenagers-on-hiv

If you have any friends who may be able to support us please do share the link. We greatly appreciate all the support we can get, no matter how big or small.

Links:

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Feb 17, 2021
Starting a new year with you

By Philippe Talavera | Director

Facilitating in Windhoek informal settlement

As you know, the Ombetja Yehinga Organisation (OYO) is a Namibian NGO that uses Arts to create social awareness.

As we all know 2020 has been extremely challenging due to COVID19. Schools closed mid March 2020 and only all reopened in the second half of September. However, even if reopened, all extra mural activities have been canceled. It has therefore not been possible for OYO to resume its activities in schools. The OYO dance troupe last life performance was early March 2020. We haven’t interacted with any life public since the beginning of the pandemic.

End November however we have been able to have two-one week workshops in two correctional facilities (E. Nepembe and Divundu). We also had two-one week workshops in the same facilities in January. This was most useful in supporting the facilities with education around COVID19 and HIV.

We continued creating short videos on COVID19 and other related issues such as GBV, LGBTQI+ issues and HIV. Since the beginning of the pandemic we produced 32 educational clips, had over 100,000 views on social media and trained door-to-door 6,887 people using those clips.

Our film ‘Kapana’, the first Namibian queer love story, is a great success internationally. It won the Kim Renders Memorial award for Outstanding Performance at the Reelout Queer Film Festival (Canada) and is runner up” best international film, audience award, at the Out on Film Festival (USA). It has also been selected at the renowned Pan African Film Festival (USA), the Massimadi LGBTQI+ film festival (Canada) and Pride Queer Film Festival (Australia). This is giving OYO exposure. Locally around World AIDS Day we could organize 8 screenings in Windhoek, respecting the local regulations at the time, and facilitate it with 190 people.

Finally we celebrated World AIDS Day. We produced with the dance troupe one clip, hold one virtual event with the UNAIDS Country Representative as special guest and trained four young people in Windhoek who went door-to-door in our informal settlement, addressing HIV and COVID19 and reaching 428 people who do not have access to social media.

Our dance troupe is probably the most affected by the situation. Dancers have not been able to perform to an audience since mid-March. We have taken this chance to train new recruits and currently have 6 dance trainees with us.

Generally speaking we find it much harder to fundraise. We totally appreciate that most of our friends find themselves in difficult financial situations too. During the forthcoming littlexlittle campaign in March 2021 we aim at getting 100 people each contributing US$10. This would help us put OYO on the map again. We will ask you to help us reach our goals by encouraging friends and colleagues to support us.

Our link is still: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/using-arts-educate-4000-namibian-teenagers-on-hiv

If you have any friends who may be able to support us please do share the link. We greatly appreciate all the support we can get, no matter how big or small.

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Oct 22, 2020
report 5 - keeping going under the COVID situation

By Philippe Talavera | Director

As you know, the Ombetja Yehinga Organisation (OYO) is a Namibian NGO that uses Arts to create social awareness.

So far 2020 has been extremely challenging due to COVID19. Schools closed mid March 2020 and only all reopened in the second half of September. However, even if reopened, all extra mural activities have been canceled. It has therefore not been possible for OYO to resume its activities in schools. All correctional facilities have also gone in isolation and haven’t allowed visitors since. Our ‘in and out’ project also came to a standstill.

Since March OYO has mostly been involved in creating educational material on COVID19. It has resumed working with young people, training them as youth facilitators to use the material we had developed. It has also expanded its online presence, in particular with the ‘an evening with YOU’ platform. It has expanded its counseling line thanks to support from the de Beers Foundation. Finally its films ‘Kapana’ and ‘Kukuri’ have been selected to various festivals (Kapana: Fargo-Moorhead International Film Festival and Out on Film Festival, both in the USA; Kukuri: Garden route international film festival in SA, Avanse International Film Festival in Ghana and the Africa Film for Impact Festival in Nigeria). This is giving OYO some exposure.

The fact that most of our projects came to a sudden standstill also meant that budgets could not be used. How to pay salaries and overheads such as rent? This became a challenge. OYO used this challenge as an opportunity and found a new office space that is cheaper and more cost effective. OYO therefore embarked on moving offices at the beginning of September.

Its dance troupe is probably the most affected by the situation. Dancers have not been able to perform to an audience since mid-March. Lots of income has been lost as well as motivation: rehearsing without dates and shooting videos doesn’t hold the same appeal as performing to excited audiences. OYO had to rethink its strategy and now only has a core of dancers. It is using this time to train new young people in particular from the ||Kharas region.

Generally speaking we find it much harder to fundraise. We totally appreciate that most of our friends find themselves in difficult financial situations too. Asking people to contribute towards our project while their own livelihood is at stake too is difficult. During the recent littlexlittle campaign we could only raise US$ 50. We therefore hope the situation will change soon as we need, more than ever, your support.

Our link is still: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/using-arts-educate-4000-namibian-teenagers-on-hiv

If you have any friends who may be able to support us please do share the link. We greatly appreciate all the support we can get, no matter how big or small.

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