By Philippe Talavera | Director
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.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser
