by Catherine Gathercole

Fifty four girls, sixteachers, five days, threesubjects and lots of brain

t r ,

power - this was the firstvacation pchool for theKavango Girls.EducationProject.

The project was set up in responseto a field study into the difficultiesfaced by girls in the Kavango Re--gion. Education statistics show theKavango hab the lowest percentugeof female learners in secondary edu-cation in Namibia, falling to 38.8%in senior secondary school (EMIS2001).

The Kavango Gir ls Educat ionProject is supported by UNICEF andcovers a wide range of activitiesfrom community sensitisation toimproving the hostel environment.

The Forum forAfrican WomenEducat iona l i s ts in Namib ia(FAWENA) has a proven trackrecord in supporting initiatives tohelp girls inWindhoek with revisionin Mathematics and Science, and waskeen to extend this to the regions.

The main purpose of the recent va-cation school in Kavango Regionwas to provide focussed revision inMathematics, Physical Science andEriglish for grade 12 girls. The planwas to put the girls into groups de-pending on their level of exam en-try, and for them to work together

Kavango girls sho\nr mathsandscience are female

witfr qualified teachers iwo hours oneach subject each day. They wouldbe given a pack of Maths and Physi-cal Science Exam Papers, a Mathsset, and writing implements. All theyneeded to bring was enthusiasm andbrainpower.

As,there were only 74 girls in theregion taking the Science subjects inGrade 12, all were invited. The timewas fixed for Monday 2"d up to Fri-day 6'h September. The Maths andPhysical Science teachers were in'Namibia as volunteers with Volun-tary Service Overseas (VSO)" whilethe Engl ish teachers were fromRundu Senior Secondary School andSt Boniface.

The venue was Maria MwengereSenior Secondary School, about 15km outside of Rundu. Informationletters were sent out, lessons pre-pared, caterers chosen, and station-ery bought. Then it was just a ques-

^tion of waiting.Registration was due to start on

Monday from 11 am, but some girlsalready arrived on Sunday aftemoon.Transport proved to be difficult. Agovernment combi set off on Mon-day to collect the girls, and was notseen again! We resorted to drivingaround Rundu looking for. girls car-rying bedding and bags, and askingthem if they were going to the Vaca-tion School.

Some girls headed for the YouthCentre instead of the school. Even-tually we had 54 girls signed up, and' on Tuesday morning we had a -

slightly delayed - opening ceremony.Trad i t iona l leader Ange l inaMatumbo Ribebe and Mr Kantema,Director of Rundu Educational Di-rectorate,.gave words of encourage-ment, and we started officially withlessons.

Everyone we spoke to saw the needfor the Project, and were enthusias-tic about its success. However, it wasnot enough to give academic supportwhile ignoring the social contextwhich makes many young womenvulnerable to teenage pregnancy, do-mestic violence and HIV/Aids. Inaddition to the classes, there weresessions on these issues. A memberof Lironga Eparu, an organisation forpeople living with HIV and Aids,gave a moving talk, and Women'sSolidarity did sessions on relation-ships and domestic violence.

. The evaluation forms were verypositive, with many rating the stand-ard of teaching and the materials ex-cellent. The greatest number of nega-tive comments was fbr the venue,mainly due to mosquitoes, a lack ofcleanliness and problems with thewater supply.

Areas for improvement includedthe length of the lessons - two hoursis a long time to concentrate on onesubject; the need to cover Biology asit is compulsory in the science field;and the inclusion of the science sub-jects at the higher level (HIGCSE).Many comments mentioned the needto make this an annual event so thatothers sirls could benefit.

The spirit of the school can be sum-marised by the comments from onegirl. She said that she was pleased tofind that she had a bed and there waslots of food, as she had anticipatedthat she would be.sleeping on thefloor, and have nothing to eat. In spiteof that she came. With such deter-mination and willingness to succeedin school, we owe the young womenof the Kavango the opportunity tomake the most of their abilities.

The youngest deregate, Nasugah petersen or south Africa (left), with patienceshanduka of Zimbabwe, Nuria Negrao of Mozambique and pinkie Mothibedi cifBotswana. Lending support from behind are Deputy Minister of Basic Educationclara Bohitile and ottilie Abrahams, chairperson of the Namibian women,s Asso_ciation and pioneer of the Affirmative Action for the Girl child project in Namibia.

by Linda Aaumann

In September the Namibian GirlChild Organisation held a meetingin Windhoek with girls and youngwomen from ten countries in theregion. They came from Mozam-bique, South Afric a, Zambia, Zim-babwe, Lesotho, Botswana, Angola,Kenya, Malawi and the sevbn edu-cation regions of Namibia.

The participants, aged between 12and 25, shared the problems girlsface in their countries, and the ac-tivities, challenges and successes of

Viva the girl child!

their groups. They discussed bestpractices promoting girls in the re-gion, and the vis i tors were im-pressed with the programmes andactivities of the Namibian Girl ChildOrganisation. They looked at waysin which girls in other countriescould replicate the Namibian Af-firmative Action for the Girl ChildProject and establish their own na-t ional organisat ions for the eir lchild.

The girls agreed ro lobby in theirown countries to gain support for theSADC Gir l Chi ld l \ / fnrromonr iL^+

will promote the empowerment ofgirls by ensuring their right to edu-cation at all levels, and that theirvoices will beheard when decisionsare taken on their behalf.

Speaking at the event, NamibianDeputy Minister of B asic Education,Clara Bohitile, refqrred to increas-ing poverty at the household levelas a major constraint for girls to ac-cess education equally with boys.Further constraints mentioned werefiequent political upheavals on thecontinent, high population growthrates, high rates of teenage preg.nancy and HIV/Aids as well as tra-ditional cultural practices and nega-tive attitudes and beliefs regardingthe rights of girls.

The Minister stated that these con_straints would not disappear bythemselves, and that concerted ef-forts were needed to achieve thegoals ofgender equity by 2005 andquality education for all by 2015.Ewa-Nunes Sorenson, a representa-tive of the Swedish developmentagency SIDA, said that educatinggirls was the single most effectiveinvestment that a countrv couldmake.

Most of the girls felt a great needfor women's organisations to assistthe girl child projects within everycountry in their challenging task ofreduc ing d isc r im ina t ion and in -equality between girls and boys, andensuring that the women of the nextgeneration are empowered andLnnrv d.^. i - * : ^L+^