Who Are We?
“Do something wonderful, people may imitate it” Albert Schweitzer
Our Africa Fund outreach effort commits to friendship with an extended family in the Southwest African country of Namibia, the worlds youngest nation. We have sponsored education, job training, food security for children, and health care assistance including HIV/AIDS, and have become closely aligned with the UN Millennium Development Goals for 2015, through shared experience of the challenges of the lives of our friends across the Atlantic ocean.
In 2002, a Pebble Hill Church member joined a USAID project designed to help formerly oppressed African entrepreneurs get a foothold in their own post Apartheid modern economy. He became close with an extended Herero family living in Katutura, a forced township outside of Windhoek, capital of Namibia, and was moved by difficulty this family faced providing things often taken for granted in the USA.
There is considerable wealth and developed infrastructure in the pristine desert country of Namibia. It has become better known to Americans as a travel destination, as it’s landscapes are so unique and beautiful. But the legacy of nine decades of racially based oppression has left in it’s wake an emerging modern economy with radically inequitable income distribution, scarce employment, and a racially imbalanced proportion of ownership of arable lands. Food distribution is dominated by supermarkets, and there is a serious problem of food security, as described by the World Food Program. (Andy consider linking World Food Program to the WFP Namibia page)
Namibia is located in the epicenter of the world HIV/AIDS pandemic and since independence infection rates have risen to estimated 20% of the current population of approximately 2 million people. Effective medications have only recently become available through state programs, when the USA finally initiated a major initiative of treatment aid and prevention in 2003. Treatments return life to people living with HIV and TB, but only if there is adequate food and nutrition, and basic medical care. All Namibian lives are touched by the crisis.
As we learned how these conditions affect daily life challenges from our friends we experienced a bond of mutual appreciation based on shared compassion and kindness, and we developed a passion for international friendship made possible by cell phones, text messaging, and e-mail, We call this commitment to international friendship The Handshake Project, of which we are but one example.
We realized that significant help was needed, focused on the welfare of children, and that we all could grow more resilient in the process of leveraging our resources here to provide it. In 2004 Pebble Hill church council granted our board permission to seek donations for our clearly stated goals and objectives, confirmed in 2006. We have been successfully assisting children and young adults for five years.
We do this with total accountability, and all of what we channel goes directly to these goals.
The first step for us is a journey of heart. “Ove Omwinyo Wanje” It means in Herero “You are in my life”