Traditional cultures in Namibia

We have a new infrastructure project and ask for your support. This project is about supplying the Mbunza community with clean drinking water (step 1) and creating a sustainable source of income in the form of a small campsite for visitors to the Living Museum (step 2).

We are happy to announce the pre-opening of the Living Museum of the Khwe.

Supported by our project partners Gebeco and Futouris e.V. we have repeatedly organized workshops and project meetings with a group of Khwe-San from Mut’icu to develop a living museum in the last two years.  This work was quite successful and we are proud that the 7th Living Museum in Namibia is ready to receive visitors.

The Khwe museum project is developing in a very good direction. To maintain the positive tendencies, we organized a traditional workshop in the museum on March 24th and 25th, 2021. The aim of the workshop in March was, among other things, to make traditional clothing, tools and weapons. Furthermore, the museum program should be supplemented by other traditional activities. The activities are, of course, also focused on the motivation of the project group. 

Read a project report from the LCFN project tour 2020 by Ralf Kühn and Sebastian Dürrschmidt with the visit of four projects.

We made it! In these testing times we have finally managed to deliver all aid supplies of our 6000€ fund raiser to the Living Museums.

Goal was to supply all Living Museums supported by us with basic food products to the value of 1000€ per museum to help the actors and their families to make it through this tourist and income free time.

The first two Living Museums have received the long awaited emergency food supplies.

After a couple of problems with suppliers in Windhoek resulting in some delays in the delivery of goods we were able to transport the supplies to the Mbunza and Mafwe. The joy was huge in both Living Museums

John, the manager of the Ovahimba Living Museum visited us these days in Windhoek and has now received the first delivery of blankets.

In the following weeks, all other Living Museums will also receive the blankets, as well as the Corona Emergency food supplies, for which we are still collecting donations through betterplace.

220 blankets for 220 museum actors

Based on the Corona situation in Namibia we sent out a donation call for a Corona emergency package on Betterplace at the end of May. Currently we managed to collect donations of 4000 Euros, 2000 E are still missing so that every museum can receive food supplies of 1000 E. Here you can continue supporting us:

Corona emergency support on Betterplace

We also received numerous donations directly onto our foundation account. We are very thankful and impressed by the willingness to support us during these difficult times.

Great donation - 220 blankets for 220 museum actors

Through our call for support Alexandra Sacharow from Red Earth Safaris learned about our emergency project. Her German clients Jürgen and Brigitte of the German company Siebdruck Uth donated 220 blankets for 220 actors in the Living Museums to a total value of N$ 13.200. We also want to extend our hearty thanks to that!

We received the thick wool blankets just now - fittingly on one of the coldest winter mornings of the passed years here in Windhoek. Together with the food donations the blankets will be distributed to the Living Museums in the next few days - we will keep you informed!

Like everywhere else in the World the Corona virus has led to a collapse of the tourism industry in Namibia. The safety measures in Namibia began with the halt of international air traffic on March 15 and with the restriction of local travel and school curriculum on March 27 (Namibian Lockdown)

For the six living museums we support this means a total loss of all income since mid-March 2020. Neither international tourists (about 90% of museum visitors) nor local travelers or school classes were able to visit the living museums and the future is uncertain, as it is currently still unclear when international travel will be possible again. Local tours have been allowed again, but the Namibian economy is so weakened that hardly anybody is travelling.

Traditional workshop of the Khwe at the Ju/‘Hoansi site

Since 2009 the LCFN has been trying to set up a project in the form of a living museum with the Khwe San in northern Namibia, unfortunately so far without success. Constantly changing project groups, little motivation and unrealistic demands by the Khwe group members, as well as some failed approaches by external development aid organizations made us think of the project as a failure.

We made a final attempt in January 2020. This was encouraged and financed by the Futouris association from Germany and the Namibian travel agency ATC, which have been supporting the traditional village of the Khwe since 2013. As a project sponsor in Germany, the German travel agency Gebeco is supporting the project.