P06 05072017

6 Wednesday 5 July 2017 National News
THE NAMIBIAN THE NAMIBIAN
National News
Wednesday 5 July 2017
7
We want to turn
this project into
a big and viable
venture which
will help
orphans and
people living
with disabilities.
– Nason Vihinda
BAKING ... Project manager of ‘Disability on the
Move’, Nason Vihinda, puts the cookies in the oven.
Group sees baking as
ticket out of poverty
• PETRUS MURONGA
THE aroma of freshly baked
cookies hangs in the air as I approach
the kitchen of the ‘Disability
on the Move’ project in
Tutungeni, Rundu in the Kavango
East region.
Nason Vihinda meets me at the
door of the house’s garage, which
has been turned into a kitchen.
Vihinda, the project manager,
is one of seven people with disabilities
who bake cookies here
every day for sale to earn a living
in a region where unemployment
is at 39%, according to the 2016
Labour Force Survey of the Namibia
Statistics Agency (NSA).
The ginger and oats cookies
taste as good as the aroma enveloping
this kitchen. Some are
crispy, others are soft and chewy,
and leave a memorable sweetness
in the mouth. The quality is as
good as any.
Any other group would have
been fine churning out these cookies
every day, but for Vihinda and
his colleagues, it is a challenge to
work in a makeshift kitchen not
designed to accommodate bakers
with physical disabilities. All of
them need to use either crutches
or wheelchairs for mobility, and
in the absence of both, they crawl
on their knees.
The group used to have 14
members, but some left after they
realised there is not much money
to be made, said Vihinda, who
uses crutches. Vihinda contracted
polio at a young age, and this left
him with a permanent physical
disability.
Other members left because
they were unable to perform their
duties due to their physical conditions.
The project began about 10
years ago with the help of Dutch
volunteer Saskia Dieks.
Showing this reporter around
the packed bakery as other members
were busy with their chores,
Vihinda said they used to sell
cookies at different government
offices and in the central business
district. But this became difficult
due to a lack of transport after
Dieks returned to The Netherlands
in 2011.
Dieks used her car to transport
the cookies. Now, the members
carry the cookies in backpacks
from one place to another, a difficult
task since most of them use
wheelchairs or crutches.
The project’s turnover is not
much either. Members are given
N$300 per month, which is
mostly used for transport to
and from the bakery. The rest is
ploughed back, and used mainly
to buy ingredients and pay for
other expenses.
Their wish is to expand the
project and acquire a bigger
oven, in which they can bake
wedding cakes, bread and other
confectionery.
“We want to turn this project
into a big and viable venture
which will help orphans and
people living with disabilities,”
said Vihinda while putting a tray
of cookies into an eye-level oven.
The seven would also like to open
a cafeteria.
Their main challenges are
lack of transport, limited work
space, and insufficient baking
equipment.
The kitchen is too small to accommodate
the wheelchair used
by group member Johanna Leevi.
As a result, she uses the chair for
DONE ... Renathe
Muronga from the
‘Disability on the
Move’ project
places freshly
baked cookies
on a plate to cool
before packaging
them in plastic
bags.
RESTING ... Members of ‘Disability
on the Move’ sit in a garage which
they have turned into a kitchen.
From left are David Ndjamba,
project manager Nason Vihinda,
Johanna Leevi and Christophine
Muronga.
sitting most of the time, but walks on
her knees from counter to counter to
perform her duties.
Vihinda accused Namibians of not
being willing to help out because
since the project started, only foreigners
had offered them assistance.
However, he commended former
Kavango East education director
Alfons Dikuwa, who granted them
permission to work from the garage
where they operate from.
The group also received a donation
of about N$37 352 (2 500 euros) from
Cor de Vos, former mayor of Nieuwegein,
a city in The Netherlands,
which they used to buy a fridge and
the small oven they are using.
Another member, Renathe Muronga,
appealed to the Rundu Town
Council to provide them with a suitable
area in town where their business
could be visible.
“We want the council to at least
give us a [place] in town because
here, there are few customers,” she
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said, balancing on her crutches while
arranging cookies in a pan.
Muronga, a mother of two, became
disabled from polio at the age of
two. However, her disability never
stopped her from going to school.
Muronga today boasts a certificate
in hospitality from the Community
Skills Development Foundation
(Cosdef).
Other members, David Ndjamba
and Christophine Muronga, also do
not want the project to fold.
“We want support, like that which
other projects are getting,” said
Ndjamba, who contracted polio at
the age of four.
Muronga called on regional and
national leaders to assist them, saying
being disabled and a mother is
not easy.
“Our leaders should look at us, and
help our project grow. People living
with disabilities are doing well in
other countries because their leaders
assist them in different ways,”
she noted.
The mother of three became disabled
in 2012 after a stroke. She said
the project had given her the zeal to
not give up on life but live as normally
as possible.
Leevi, with her trousers white at the
knees from the flour which she walked
on on the floor, wished things could
change for the better for the group
so that they could at least take their
project to greater heights. She too has
a certificate from Cosdef.
Apart from government offices,
the group sells cookies to various
supermarkets in town.
Assistant manager of OK Foods
supermarket Neila Felisberto said
they help the group by buying their
products and providing them with
flour as part of their social responsibility.
“We are with them in the struggle,
and they must continue with the
project,” advised Felisberto.
The governor of Kavango East,
Samuel Mbambo, said he was aware
of the group’s efforts, and commended
them for the example they
had set for other people living with
disabilities as well as able-bodied
ones.
He thus urged them to persevere,
promising that his office will see how
it could help them achieve their goals.
“We are very proud of them. Disability
does not mean inability. They
should keep on and be a shining example
to the community,” Mbambo
stated.
Members of the ‘Disability on
the Move’ group have refused to be
cowed into submission and vowed to
soldier on. – Nampa
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Traditional healers tell
‘botsotso healers’ to go
• ADAM HARTMAN
at WALVIS BAY
INSTEAD of a kudu horn headset,
hyena cloak, cheetah briefs,
black mamba belts or crocodile
vellies, Erongo traditional healers’
committee chairman Immanuel
Katambu was casually dressed.
The Namibian met him yesterday
in his small but neat and cosy
living room at Kuisebmond, where
a large plasma-screen television
and an impressive sound system
dominate the space.
The meeting was to discuss the
problem of fake traditional healers
from foreign countries, who are like
“lions”, stealing from Namibians
and giving authentic local traditional
healers a bad name.
“I am not a witch doctor; that is
derogatory, and sangoma is South
African, not Namibian. I am a
registered and certified traditional
healer. That is how I make my
living.
“My ancestral spirits use me to
help others,” explained Katambu.
Besides a budgie chirping from
a closed box, wanting to get out,
nothing else seemed unusual.
Last week, the Erongo police
took a Malawian man in for
questioning for allegedly swindling
a Walvis Bay woman out of
N$10 000.
She got his name from a newspaper
classifieds page. There
were dozens of advertisements of
different traditional healers who
were claiming to cure anything
and everything, including breaking
curses, healing HIV-AIDS,
giving instant riches, promising
health, wealth and prosperity, better
sexuality, better employers, and so
the list goes on.
Initially, the woman wanted
to consult the healer over chest
pains, but she apparently forgot
about the pain when he offered her
instant wealth. After performing a
few tricks, he convinced her of his
‘magic’ and lured her to Independence
Beach, where she brought him
R10 000 cash at his request.
He wrapped the money neatly
in a plastic bag and added sand,
saying the sand will change into
money when the bag is thrown into
the sea. He threw the bag into the
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Immanuel Katambu
water, and she was told to return
the next day.
“Meantime, he contacted his accomplice,
also a traditional healer,
who retrieved the bag that was held
down under the water by the weight
of the sand, and fled to Malawi with
the money,” said Erongo police
head of community affairs, warrant
officer Ileni Shapumba.
“It cuts both ways. It is not only
the traditional healers who are at
fault. Their customers are also to
blame because their motives are
not honest most of the time. That
is why they consult the healers at
night. Only when they lose something
will they report it”, he added.
Shapumba also urged the media
not to support healers by allowing
them advertising space as it was
promoting corruption.
“What they (fake healers) do is
criminal. They steal under false
pretences,” he said, warning people
to stay away from traditional
healers, especially those who are
not registered.
Katambu said the media should
ensure that the traditional healers’
advertisements contain their real
names, mobile numbers and landline
numbers, as well as address and
registration number to ensure that
they are authentic. He said a single
healer places different advertisements
under different names and
different numbers, just to throw the
net wider to lure more customers.
Katambu is from Otjimbingwe,
where he finished Grade 8. Because
he lived with his religious grandmother,
he soon found himself as
a pastor of the church.
“I always wanted to be a psychologist,
but the spirit started
coming to me. I realised that it was
the spirit of my grandfather which
wanted to manifest itself in me as
a traditional healer. Being a pastor
and traditional healer does not go
hand-in-hand, so I quit the pulpit
due to pressure from the spirit, and
became a healer,” he explained.
He has been a healer for the past
five years.
He claimed that he had managed
to have thieves arrested on
behalf of a client a few years ago.
Thereafter, the police called for
the establishment of a traditional
healers’ committee, and he was
appointed its chairman.
The committee is very clear
about its services and areas of
work, and they pay a membership
fee. There are about 10 healers at
Walvis Bay, and about 30 in the
wider Erongo region.
Katambu said many bogus healers
come from countries such as
Malawi, Zimbabwe and Tanzania
to steal from desperate Namibians,
and then flee back to their countries.
He said a few years ago, fake foreign
traditional healers had flocked
to Windhoek, but when Windhoek
“woke up”, the healers fled to the
coast. The influx to Walvis Bay
started in 2014.
“They must face the law. They
are ‘botsotso healers’ who must go
back to where they came from, and
leave our people alone,” Katambu
fumed.
He also urged government to pass
the Traditional Health Practitioners
Bill which was tabled by former
health minister Richard Kamwi
in 2014.
“Having such a bill will give
government the teeth to regulate
this profession and ensure that
Namibians are protected against
fake healers.”
Asked if he ever wore the apparel
associated with traditional healers
and performed strange rituals, he
laughed and said it depended on the
spirit at the time. He, however, did
not answer “no”.
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