Project completed – Aid supply for the Living Museums

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.

Mafwe and Mbunza

Herefore we initiated a once-off fundraiser via the online portal Betterplace. After having received the first donations of our overall target very quickly, we (Kathrin and Sebastian Dürrschmidt) were able to deliver the first supplies personally to the Living Museum of the Mbunza and Mafwe at the beginning of July.

In the mean time we had nearly reached the donation target on Betterplace

Deliveries to the San in Grashoek und /Xa//oba

Further deliveries to both Living Museums of the Ju/‘Hoansi-San in Grashoek and the Hunter’s Museum in /Xa//oba were completed end of July. After having had quite some problems with wholesalers in Windhoek we decided to order the goods directly in Grootfontein with Botma Trading, who also delivered everything free of charge to both museums. The San were extremely thankful for the dearly anticipated supplies.

Apollo, the manager of the Living Museum in Grashoek sent us the following message:

„We would like to give the Living Culture Foundation Namibia a huge thanks of the donation of food supply. All the actors and the management are very happy.”

Grashoek

/Xa//oba

Aid supply for the Ovahimba

The delivery to the Living Museum of the Ovahimba was organized directly by the manager John at the end of July. He ordered mainly maize meal and cooking oil directly with Agra in Opuwo and organized the transport himself. All members of the museum were extremely happy for the food supplies. As all other museums the Ovahimba did not have any visitors several months hence they also don’t have any income.

Damara food donation

Getting food supplies to the Damara Living Museum turned out to be most challenging, as we were not able to locate a supplier for the region nor did we have the time to travel up ourselves in July. When all was organised for beginning of August and we were ready to go, our Khomas Region was put under Covid-19 lockdown, meaning that we were not allowed to cross the regions borders.  

At the end of August the lockdown for Swakopmund was lifted and our foundation members Claudia and Hermann Tülp were free to move again (except into our Khomas Region). We were able to send the previously ordered and paid (and anxiously awaited) food supplies to Swakopmund to Claudia and Hermann who then travelled to the Damara Living Museum and delivered everything.

Hansbernhard, manager of the Damara Living Museum thanked everyone as follows:  

„We highly appreciate that you (Living Culture Foundation Namibia) support us during this time. This will help us and will motivate the people from the museum to continue.’’

The blankets sponsored by the German company Siebdruck Uth were also distributed amongst all museums.

CONCLUSION:

Thanks to the overwhelming willingness to support and donate especially of our long-time supporters from Germany, Namibia, Europe and America, but also of newly interested supporters from all over the world, we were able to successfully complete this aid project. All those in need at the receiving end were so grateful!

This gratefulness that we personally received goes to all who made the finalisation of this project possible. Thank you so much for your support

Project report by Sebastian and Kathrin Dürrschmidt