School is not free in Namibia. Although there is no “tuition,” per se (allowing the country to say that they have “public schooling”), there are school fees, mandatory uniforms, school supplies, and many other incidentals that the children and their families (if they have families) must provide. This is well beyond the means of most. Food is not typically provided at school. Hostel fees are very expensive. For many of the children who attend school, if they do not live in the hostel, chances are that they do not eat regularly and often come to school hungry.
A Benedictine nun, Sister Wilhelmine, helps care for some of the children, but her order, as most organizations in Namibia, has extremely limited resources. As an example, the priest associated with their church feeds more than 300 children a day with his own money.
Currently, Reaching the Goal for African Children is focusing attention on three young boys who were street children in 2009. Their names are Velem, now 16, Tjikomo, now 14, and Petrus, now 15. In 2009, they were so malnourished that they looked like very young children, without food, without shelter, and without hope. After being away from school for years, they are now in fifth and sixth grades, and doing well. Two of them live in the school’s hostel and are eating well and regularly. The third lives in his village in a hut that Reaching the Goal for African Children provided for shelter, and using money that we provide for food. Sister Wilhelmine oversees all three of them and administers the funds provided by Reaching the Goal for African Children.
In addition to these three youngsters, Reaching the Goal for African Children is also helping two young men, Jojo and Willem, attend the country’s only university, the University of Namibia. Both of these young men were at the very top of their secondary schools but had no financial resources at all to attend college. Jojo’s father abandoned the family and now lives in Angola; the rest of his family has discouraged him from attending college. Reaching the Goal for African Children has provided all of his tuition, fees, books, housing and food, and other incidentals. Willem’s parents are both dying from HIV/AIDS and one of Willem’s responsibilities is to care for his younger brother. For college, Reaching the Goal for African Children has provided Willem with money for books, a computer, transportation, housing, and food.