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Out of Africa

Czech NGO helps Namibian workers escape poverty, one handcrafted quilt at a time

By Michael Heitmann
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
August 29th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
People in Need's clients in Keetsmanshoop, Namibia, continued sewing during their recent petition for better work conditions.
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Jan Přerovský/THE PRAGUE POST
People in Need's first Nama store, selling dolls and jewelry, opened on the third floor of Kotva last month.
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Zdeňka Hauková’s workshop has an unusual supply chain: It spans more than 8,500 kilometers (3,282 miles) and two continents. Twice a year, toy elephants and rhinos, along with a colorful selection of bags and decorated ostrich eggshells, make the journey from the southwestern tip of Africa to Prague.
Hauková runs a small workshop and community project in southern Namibia, established by the Czech nongovernmental organization Člověk v tísni (People in Need) in 2004. The project employs 50 people in the small, dusty town of Keetsmanshoop and supports countless more in the community.
“At our workshop, we employ those worst off, people infected with HIV,” Hauková said. “We aim to stabilize not only their individual lives, but their whole families’ lives.”
The World Health Organization puts HIV/AIDS prevalence among the population of this region of Namibia at nearly 20 percent. Shame, fear and rejection often surround the lives of people infected, with single mothers and relatives taking care of AIDS orphans especially in need of assistance. The People in Need workshop provides these families with counseling, support and a steady income.
However, unsatisfied with their current pay levels and working conditions, a group of the workshop’s clients went on what one Namibian newspaper deemed a “strike” in May, though they never stopped knitting and sewing, Hauková said.
“They scribbled their thoughts on paper, what they liked and what they didn’t like,” she said. “They handed in this petition and asked for a meeting. Then they called the magistrate, the mayor and the governor [of the region].”
While Hauková was concerned by the workers’ grievances, she also saw their petition as a positive development.
“This was a semi-success,” she said. “It was proof of their newly gained self-confidence. ... They are strong enough to show their concerns even though their sense of responsibility [for their work] lags behind their demands.”
A copy of the petition revealed the worker’s complaints.
“How many years have passed and our salaries are still the same?” the petition asked. “We are not getting the same pay or money you get, when you come in and just do the talking.”
In addition, the petition called for the return of Kateřina Verchuša, who took maternity leave from the project in February: “We still want our Katerina back,” it read. At small development projects, contact between staff and local beneficiaries is close, said Jiří Plecitý, People in Need’s desk officer for Africa.
“If someone leaves, the change is tough on all involved,” he said.
Despite the dramatic nature of some of the petition’s complaints, a roundtable discussion solved the impasse. Monthly meetings will now be held at the workshop to involve clients in its decision-making. There were no raises, but People in Need’s clients are already paid higher than the national Namibian average, Hauková said.
“It was a huge success for us that they asked for additional meetings and wanted to solve problems as a team,” she said. “This isn’t a business. ... Our main goal is to help these families.”
Travel guides describe the town of Keetsmanshoop as a mere stopover on a highway that connects Namibia with neighboring South Africa, a place to refill gas, check tire pressure and move on. A dusty landscape surrounds this community of 15,000, founded by 19th-century German missionaries where the Namib and Kalahari deserts meet.
Official estimates put Namibia’s unemployment rate between 30 percent and 40 percent, but near Keetsmanshoop these figures are closer to 50 percent. Those not part of the formal economy rely on subsistence farming and livestock for survival, making them vulnerable to natural disasters.
“The job market is very weak, but still there’s a chance for those already familiar with work habits,” Hauková said.
The income distribution in Namibia is generally recognized as the most unequal in the world, according to USAID and other agencies. The country’s relatively high per-capita income of $7,600 (156,332 Kč) a year obscures the pervasive poverty that grips many of the country’s 1.8 million inhabitants, who often do not receive a helping hand from Namibia’s wealthier classes.
“The middle class is not usually inclined to come to the aid of the poor,” she said.
The Czech Republic’s development aid budget currently stands at $155 million, or 0.12 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). This is expected to see a sharp increase in coming years as the batch of member states that joined the European Union in 2004 have pledged to bolster development aid to 0.17 percent and 0.33 percent of GDP by 2010 and 2015, respectively. The EU as a whole is determined to reach the UN’s target for development assistance of 0.7 percent by 2015.
The largest African recipients of Czech development aid are Angola and Zambia. After Foreign Affairs Minister Karel Schwarzenberg held encouraging talks with several African ambassadors in June, he promised that more funding to Africa would be coming soon, especially an increase in the number of so-called micro-projects, which bring immediate results, like Hauková’s workshop.
From Windhoek to Kotva
Tangible products of development aid, the goods produced by People in Need’s workers are sold in Windhoek, Namibia’s capital, and in Prague, where last month the nonprofit opened its first store, called “Nama,” on the third floor of the Kotva department store at náměstí Republiky.
The store is decorated with an African motif and offers products ranging from smiling Nama and Owambo dolls to colorful handbags or ostrich-shell hairclips. Prices range from 160 Kč for a purse to 450 Kč for a shopping bag decorated with painted ostrich shells.
The store’s opening marks a highpoint for the young project, which first had to overcome many difficulties, including one wholly unexpected:
“The women dragged their children along after them even though the workshop wasn’t a particularly safe environment for preschool kids,” Hauková said. Now, two kindergarten teachers take care of the children in an adjacent building and on a playground.
Concern for the safety of one mother’s offspring prompted exceptional action. Josephine Cooper’s first two children died due to malnutrition and lack of care.
“She’s mentally disabled, but we don’t have a psychiatrist in Keetsmanshoop who can diagnose her condition,” Hauková said.
When Cooper became pregnant again and gave birth to triplets, her aunt contacted People in Need’s office in Keetmanshoop. The organization rolled out a public fundraising campaign, put up billboards, distributed donation boxes and asked local businessmen to contribute.
Despite a community that is often separated along ethnic lines, the town rallied to support the young mother and her boys, named Hope, Faith and Given, who now enjoy regular trips around town in a makeshift handcart. When the donations ran out, People in Need offered Cooper a job as a cleaning lady at the workshop.

Michael Heitmann can be reached at mheitmann@praguepost.com


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