German trust seeks partners for Dolam orphans

APRIL 2015. It is school holiday in Namibia and Rosa Namises takes the children of Dolam Children’s Home to the small farm of her sister near Okahandja, so that they can experience nature and farm life far from their crowded lives in Katutura.

But not all children spend their holidays at the farm. Three siblings, for example, who have lived with Namises for some years now, are going to visit their parents. They are extremely poor and homeless and live together with their other children south of Windhoek under a tree, sleeping on an oxcart.

When the children from Katutura come to visit, they have to sleep there too. Namises is convinced that even if the family is living in extreme poverty the children need to see their parents.

More than 20 children and youth live in the Dolam Children’s Home. Most of them are orphans and children from broken family backgrounds and from families who are too poor to take care of the children.

Namises, founder and manager of Dolam Children’s Home (and also a well-known Namibian human rights activist and former parliamentarian) has cared for orphans and vulnerable children for the past 20 years.

The current Dolam Children’s Home – a small house near Sam Nujoma Stadium in Katutura – is Namises’ private property. The house is old and has become too small for the eight to 18-year-old children and youth who have to share the tiny dormitory.

A German trust called Pallium drives the financing for the first building on the land that Namises received for her welfare trust from the City of Windhoek to build a new Dolam Children’s Home. The building project started in 2015 with the palisade fencing of the plot that is located in Tempelstraat in Katutura.

Once the house is finished the children will move to the new location.

Furthermore, the new Dolam Children’s Home shall provide space for more orphans and vulnerable children, and also for abandoned, orphaned, HIV-positive and sick babies.

At present Pallium is looking for Namibian donors/cooperation partners who can help with the building project.

Michaela Fink, a board member of Pallium, has worked multiple times in Dolam Childrens Home.

“I got to know Rosa as a woman who fights tirelessly for her country. She is full of compassion for the weakest members of society,” she said.

Overall, the work of Dolam Children’s Home and Trust is very reliable and professional, says Fink. The trust has been giving its reports and financial accounting to an external auditor since 2009. Pallium helps people in Africa, who – particularly based on health issues – get into financial and social troubles.

Beside Dolam Children’s Home, it also supports other projects in Namibia, like Havana Soup Kitchen in Katutura, where 40 children get two meals every day. The soup kitchen is also running a community programme to support families in the very poor homes of Havana with food and other daily needs.

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