Wimsa
Report on Activities
April 2002 to March 2003

 

Regional WIMSA Team

Regional Co-ordinator – Mr Axel Thoma
Counterpart to the Regional Co-ordinator – Mr Joram |Useb
Regional Education Advisor – Ms Yvonne Pickering
Trainee Counterpart to the Regional Education Advisor – Ms Victoria Geingos
Mentor – Ms Magdalena Brörmann
Trainees – Ms Marieta Naoadoës and Ms Batlhwaelwang Melato
Messenger – Mr Frans Ui-nuseb

WIMSA Contact Details

8 Bach Street, Windhoek West
PO Box 80733, Windhoek, Namibia (southern Africa)
WIMSA main line: (+264) (+61) 244909
Education line (Yvonne Pickering direct): (+264) (+61) 272911
Fax (+264) (+61) 272806
E-mail WIMSA general: wimsareg@iafrica.com.na
E-mail Regional Education Advisor: edu.wimsa@iway.na
WIMSA website: http://www.san.org.za

 

In memory of

Chief Willem Ryperd
March 1960 – November 2002

and the many other
San community members
who passed away during 2002

 

Acknowledgements

The WIMSA team and member organisations wish to acknowledge and extend our sincere thanks to the following agencies and individuals for the financial support they rendered to WIMSA during the reporting period:

  • Evangelischer Entwicklungsdienst / Church Development Service (EED)
  • Norwegian Church Aid (NCA)
  • Terre des hommes (Tdh)
  • The Bernard van Leer Foundation
  • The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
  • The Irish Agency for Personnel Service Overseas (APSO)
  • The Irish Catholic Agency for World Development (Trócaire)
  • The Ubuntu Foundation
  • The Canada Fund
  • Breadline Africa
  • The Western Cape Department of Water Affairs and Forestry (South Africa)
  • The Western Cape Department of Economic Development, Agriculture and Tourism
  • International Cooperation for Development (ICD)
  • Open Channels
  • Global Ministries
  • The Kalahari Peoples Fund (KPF)
  • Unternehmen Buschmänner e.V.
  • The University of Botswana and University of Tromsø Collaborative Programme for San/Basarwa Research and Capacity Building
  • Safari Club International
  • The International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation
  • Heritage
  • Eva van Beek
  • Hattie Wells
  • Casey Hardison

WIMSA is also grateful for the ongoing moral support and commitment of its official and informal support organisations, academics around the world interested in the San people, and representatives of UN agencies and southern African government departments.
WIMSA wishes to extend a special thanks to Willemien le Roux who served as the organisation’s Education and Culture Co-ordinator for two years until December 2002. Her tireless efforts in addressing San educational and cultural issues over a huge geographical area (spanning Botswana, Namibia and South Africa) are highly appreciated. Fortunately WIMSA will continue co-operating with her as she is now working on educational and cultural issues in Botswana for Letloa, a San support organisation based in Maun, Botswana.
WIMSA also thanks Perri Caplan for assisting Magdalena Brörmann once again to produce this report. Magdalena was responsible for the writing and Perri for the editing, design and layout.

 

Introduction

The WIMSA Board of Trustees mandated its secretariat, the team in Windhoek, to continue focusing
in 2002/03 on the areas of education, culture and heritage, intellectual property, land and natural resources, human rights and capacity-building. Each WIMSA activity in each of these areas is undertaken for one or more of the following purposes: administration, capacity-building, advocacy, lobbying, networking and development support.
While Botswana and South Africa have support organisations serving San specifically, such an organisation serving all San of Namibia has not yet been established, hence WIMSA, since its inception in 1996, has attended to requests from Namibian San communities for assistance in their development efforts. This additional task has been eased by Namibia-based WIMSA support organisations, particularly the Windhoek-based Legal Assistance Centre (LAC) and Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation (IRDNC) in the Caprivi Region, as well as by the individual professionals who provide support on request, including the Co-ordinator of the Omaheke San Trust (OST) and the Rõssing Foundation Crafts Programme Manager. WIMSA will also support the San in Angola until a specific Angolan San support organisation is in place.
In the reporting period WIMSA was among the role-players in a great many activities. It must be noted that WIMSA’s intention in reporting fairly comprehensively herein on its involvement in these activities is to keep the San and other interested parties abreast of recent developments in San affairs, not to take any credit away from those involved in the activities on a day-to-day basis.
This report refers to activities and events in which the WIMSA board, individual San as WIMSA representatives, the WIMSA team and individual team members were involved as either facilitators or organisers, advisors, supporters, trainers, mentors or service providers, first and foremost serving the San communities in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Angola and Zambia, but also other parties around the world affiliated in one way or another to the San. The processes and developments, achievements and setbacks described in this report have flowed from the collective efforts of San community members, San organisations and committees, the WIMSA board and team, WIMSA support organisations, consultants, donors, government officials, UN agency representatives, academics and concerned individuals in support of San development.
On the recommendation of several regular readers of the WIMSA annual activity report, the board and team decided to structure this report in a similar way to the previous few reports to enable the reader to follow at first glance the development of activities over the years. We also decided to report in greater detail on those activities involving San as the principal role-players because, as numerous readers have noted, such detail conveys important insights and places a given activity in a broader context.
The primary target audience for WIMSA annual activity reports includes the WIMSA donors, WIMSA support organisations and San supporters among the broader public, and individual San, San representatives and San organisations, particularly those who worked for and with WIMSA during the period April 2002 to March 2003.

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