Strengthening Namibian-German bonds through sport

THE Namibian German Foundation (Nads) and one of the biggest sport clubs in Germany, ASC Gottingen signed a new cooperation agreement last week to strengthen the international voluntary service, ‘weltwarts’ in Namibia.

The weltwarts program, which is partly funded by the German government, was initiated in 2008 to give German volunteers an opportunity to go abroad for a year to work at schools, sport clubs or community projects.

It has grown tremendously and currently more than 3 500 young volunteers are involved and spend one year abroad in Asia, South America and Africa, where they have 75 volunteers working in South Africa, Rwanda, Zambia, Tanzania and Uganda. In 2012 the programme was also launched in Namibia and has since grown to include 18 volunteers who are active in northern and central Namibia as well as at the coast.

Since 2016 the project was expanded to also include Namibian volunteers going to Germany, with six Namibians having gone to Germany since then.

In 2015, the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), which is the biggest citizens movement in Germany with 101 member organisations and more than 27 million members in 90 000 sport clubs, also became part of the programme and are involved with the volunteers in many projects in the guest nations.

The idea of the programme is that young people assist in projects with disadvantaged backgrounds to allow the dream of ‘one world, that takes care of each other’ to come true. The voluntary year is seen as an educational effort which gives its participants the chance to grow, to learn and to think outside the box.

The new cooperation agreement will reinforce the existing projects between Namibia and Germany, while it also supports the administrative capacity and provides local background knowledge for the projects.

At the launch last week, the CEO of ASC Gottingen, Jorg Schnitzerling said they are one of the oldest and biggest sport clubs in Germany, being nearly 175 years old and including 10 000 members of all ages, while they have about 1 000 volunteers working all over the world.

“The work between the organisations in Namibia, the DOSB and ASC Gottingen is built on confidence and trust. This made it possible to send 18 volunteers to your beautiful country to work in many social and sport projects in schools, sport clubs and community projects. As a result, children have been able to learn many new types of sport, and gain political and environmental awareness. The young people in our projects benefit from the possibility to go abroad for one year and connect with the local community. This benefits not only the community, but also exposes the volunteers to valuable experience,” he said.

The chairman of the Nads board, Andreas Herrle said the cooperation agreement will strengthen their vision of building a strong and diverse Namibian community.

“Nads intensely believes in building a strong Namibian community consisting of different cultural and language groups. This, amongst many other aspects, makes Namibia very attractive to the outside world. In this spirit, this cooperation between the German Olympic Federation, ASC Gottingen, Weltwarts and Nads will strengthen our commitment,” he said.

‘Sport has the power to change the world’

Susanne Gaerte of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) said they believed in Nelson Mandela’s immortal words that ‘sport has the power to change the world.’

“We all believe in the power of sport to change lives and many of us have experienced it for ourselves, in our sport clubs in Germany and Namibia, and have seen and experienced it in our many projects we are implementing together,” she said.

“The volunteers bring back so many insights and experiences which are hard to describe in just a few words. The volunteer service provides an active citizenship in Namibia as well as Germany and strengthens the exchange between the two countries in a unique way,” she added.

Ulla Finkeldey, ASC Gottingen’s project manager for Namibia said she started working with them four years ago and since then the project has grown from strength to strength.

“Our goal is to increase the number of volunteers in Namibia to 20 by next year and to keep the project going. In 2016 I decided to also send Namibians to Germany as part of the project – some of them had never been out of Namibia or on a plane before, so it was a big thrill for them,” she said.

The first two Namibians that went to Germany were Romario Nghifitikeko, who worked on an athletics project and Brandon Christiaan, who was involved in a soccer programme for a year. Christiaan has since then returned to Germany and is now studying sport management in Leipzig.

Since then, four more Namibian volunteers have gone to Germany – Brumelda Cloete and Dominique Diergaardt in 2017, and Zidane Gawaseb and Chris Swanepoel in 2018.

The 18 German volunteers in Namibia were also in attendance and gave brief presentations of the projects that they are involved in, in Namibia.

In northern Namibia they are involved in projects in Eenhana, Ruacana and Ongwediva. Some of these projects include an Oshana basketball project in collaboration with DOSB; and a project in Eenhana in collaboration with the Green Hope Foundation which focusses on soccer training for youths as well as assisting the Namibia Football Association’s Galz & Goals programme in the north.

In Windhoek, volunteers are working at the Bernhard Nordkamp Centre where about 120 children are assisted with physical education classes, soccer, tennis and swimming, as well as dancing and music classes.

There are also sport projects at St Barnabas Primary School, Peoples Primary School and Moreson Special School, as well as a project with Special Olympics Namibia, with the aim of sending some Namibian athletes to the Special Olympics World Games in Abu Dhabi next year.

The projects in Rehoboth include working with the Namibia Canoe and Rowing Federation at Lake Oanob, as well as with Origo Primary School and Rehoboth Private School.

In Walvis Bay, projects are running at Nara Primary School, the Playtime Youth Development Trust and the Sunshine Centre for children with physical and mental disabilities.

In Swakopmund the volunteers are involved in projects at Festus Gonteb and Swakopmund Primary Schools; an advanced athletics course at the Dome; and with the Swakop Striders Athletics Club and Swakopmund Football Club.