Spend time with your children – Nujoma

FOUNDING President Sam Nujoma has urged parents to spend time with their children to prevent them from losing cultural values and norms.

Nujoma was speaking on Saturday at the Omagongo Cultural Festival hosted by the Uukwaluudhi Traditional Authority.

He said it is a pity that nowadays, parents do not spend time with their children, but instead use most of their time abusing alcohol at cuca shops and bars, especially the fathers.

“For this reason, the younger generation is forgetting and ignoring the significance of embracing our culture because of a lack of proper cultural guidance to know who they are, where they come from and where they are going,” he argued.

The former President said to keep busy, young people instead engage in social media, where they very often are speaking with total strangers, and picking up destructive behavioural tendencies.

He also criticised Namibians who hate their traditional food such as “omboga (traditional spinach), oshigali (baked beans), oshikwiila (traditional bread), omagungu (mopane worms), omwayi (traditional soup), oshikundu (non-alcoholic home brew), and then opt for imported food.

Nujoma said some modern food is not organic, but genetically modified, and results in health complications.

“Our forebears were so healthy and strong, owing to their chosen diets comprising mostly of the traditional food grown organically,” he stressed.

Sharing similar sentiments, education arts and culture deputy minister Anna Nghipondoka said parents have abandoned the task of educating their children, leaving it all in the hands of schools. “In the process, we rid ourselves of the natural responsibility of passing on inherent values, morals and other traditional knowledge that cannot be learnt at school,” she stated. Nghipondoka added that it was sad and disappointing to see a poor attendance by children at traditional events. To close this gap, the ministry is currently running a programme called traditional life skills, which identifies parents from the communities to come to schools and train pupils in cultural practices, skills, norms and values.

Omusati governor Erginus Endjala said the festival is not unique to Namibia, but has been organised in other parts of Africa, namely Swaziland, Lesotho and South Africa.

He said the purpose of hosting the Omagongo festival in an African context “is to bring people together to celebrate and share the history of our ancestors.

Equally, and most importantly, it is to promote peace and harmony among the people”. “We are taking stock of our rich history. Through this festival, cultural values are being displayed to our young generations. I regard this type of festival as a university of cultural preservation and living museum of our past heritage, cultural norms and behaviour,” Endjala noted.