Bureaucracy threatens to derail Okahandja Park school project

RED TAPE could see a volunteer feeding scheme losing donor funding for the establishment of a school in the Okahandja Park informal settlement on the northern outskirts of Windhoek.

The Children’s Hope Initiative Project feeds about 150 vulnerable children three times a week, many of whom are orphans, from a makeshift nursery school it rents for this purpose. The community involvement and dedication has ensured a donation from the German organisation – Hand in Hand fuer Kinder – which has also agreed to buy the plot on which to build the school.The organisation will also ensure that the children receive at least one meal a day and that volunteers receive a small salary.But the Windhoek Municipality is still to decide whether or not it will sell a plot of land identified by the project.Volunteers say they handed their application several months ago and fear losing money already deposited in a bank account for them to start building.A municipal official, Harold Kisting, said yesterday that the application was still being processed because the correct procedures had not been followed and that the matter would only be up for Council approval by the end of August.A number of squatters lived on the plot until recently when the Municipality requested them to move.Only one man who says he does not have the means to relocate still remains.He, however, has indicated his willingness to move if he receives help in demolishing and reconstructing his shack elsewhere.Currently the Children’s Hope Initiative Project has identified 48 children between the ages of six and eighteen who are not attending school.The new school would provide them with informal education to help them catch up to other children in mainstream schooling in the hope that they too can return to the system.Standard Bank Namibia and Pollination Publishers recently donated books to the project for the second time this year to get them started.A volunteer teacher has also offered his help and is waiting to start teaching.At the moment the project pays a creche N$400 per month for the use of its facilities.This agreement will be terminated in September and chances of renewing the contract appear slim.The community involvement and dedication has ensured a donation from the German organisation – Hand in Hand fuer Kinder – which has also agreed to buy the plot on which to build the school.The organisation will also ensure that the children receive at least one meal a day and that volunteers receive a small salary.But the Windhoek Municipality is still to decide whether or not it will sell a plot of land identified by the project.Volunteers say they handed their application several months ago and fear losing money already deposited in a bank account for them to start building.A municipal official, Harold Kisting, said yesterday that the application was still being processed because the correct procedures had not been followed and that the matter would only be up for Council approval by the end of August.A number of squatters lived on the plot until recently when the Municipality requested them to move.Only one man who says he does not have the means to relocate still remains.He, however, has indicated his willingness to move if he receives help in demolishing and reconstructing his shack elsewhere.Currently the Children’s Hope Initiative Project has identified 48 children between the ages of six and eighteen who are not attending school.The new school would provide them with informal education to help them catch up to other children in mainstream schooling in the hope that they too can return to the system.Standard Bank Namibia and Pollination Publishers recently donated books to the project for the second time this year to get them started.A volunteer teacher has also offered his help and is waiting to start teaching.At the moment the project pays a creche N$400 per month for the use of its facilities.This agreement will be terminated in September and chances of renewing the contract appear slim.