By: Fransina Ndateelela Kahungu
Sixty-two years ago, it became customary for the Pan African Women’s Day to be celebrated each year on 31 July. This day is deliberately set aside for African women on the continent and in the diaspora to celebrate and honour the achievements of African women and advocate for gender equality in Africa.
The day was first commemorated on 31 July 1962 in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. Thereafter, the Pan African Women’s Organisation (PAWO), Africa’s first and oldest collective women’s organisation was formed.
PAWO’s initial mission was to contribute to the continent’s liberation from colonialism, rallying to bring an end to apartheid and advocate for the abolishment of all discriminatory practices against African women.
Meekulu Putuse Appolus (born in 1930), a nurse and liberation struggle stalwart is recorded as a PAWO founding member. She died in 1986, a few years before Namibia gained independence.
As we celebrate African women’s contributions towards political, socio-economic, cultural and religious empowerment, the contributions and aspirations of Meekulu Putuse Appolus and other women should be celebrated too. Let us also appreciate the Namibian women who participated in resisting the German conquest and all other colonial rule.
The theme for this year’s Pan-African Women’s Day is, Invest in Education: Securing the Future of Women and Girls in Africa. It begs for a clear understanding of Education in its totality, which is the transmission of knowledge, skills, and characters in various forms.
One of PAWO’s aims is to advocate for the abolishment of all discriminatory practices against African women, while the Swapo Party Women’s Council is tasked with mobilising Namibian women for their full participation in the transformation of Namibia.
The two organisations work in the pursuit of formal and informal education. Unstructured learning, through daily experiences, has been the most influential form of teaching and learning.
One of the main purposes of Pan-African Women’s Day is to celebrate those who have gone before us. It is also important to honour the likes of doctor Libertine Inaviposa Amathila, a renowned Namibian medical doctor, and Her Excellency, Dr. Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, the Vice-President of Namibia.
Overall, this day is to highlight the most practical and effective mechanisms of women empowerment, focusing on capacity building. Skills and understanding are the most important mechanisms to have.
Thus, women need to be capacitated to fulfil their roles. With such attributes, they will be able to demand their rightful place. Moreover, we note that women have taken steps towards economic emancipation as they have opened small and medium enterprises and informal trading businesses.
However, they are in dire need of adequate and appropriate spaces and support for trading, as these businesses are the backbone of the economy.
One of the recommendations on women empowerment written in the book titled: Namibia: Perspectives for National Reconstruction and Development, United Nations Institute for Namibia (UNIN), 1986, states that: “Provision should be made to intensify training of women at the non-formal and formal levels. This should include adult literacy and vocational training programmes. The latter would be particularly useful in opening up opportunities for women’s employment in ranching, manufacturing, cottage and handicraft industries and other informal sector activities.”
At the end of the chapter dealing with women’s issues, the same book concludes that: “it will be essential to ensure that women are equipped to fill high-level posts and responsibilities and to encourage them into spheres of expertise, such as those of finance, industry, agriculture, health and education”.
Namibia, as a country, supports its inhabitants in these areas through various institutions. The country has recorded an increase in the number of women who have not only enrolled but also graduated from institutions of higher learning.
Records from the University of Namibia (UNAM) show that from 1992 to 2022, 21,573 male students graduated at UNAM, while 42,507 female students graduated.
The miles Namibia has covered are encouraging, however, they do not exonerate us from the duties that bind us to continue working relentlessly for the entrenchment of gender perspectives in legislation and policy intervention.
Namibia is a model country for women empowerment, yet we are still faced with prejudice based on gender-based violence that persists in damaging the fabric of our society.
The Pan-African Women’s Day shall serve as the day that aims to encourage women to continue being key decision-makers in decision-making processes, and activities that uplift the whole community.
Thus, the focus should now be to strengthen relationships between men and women and raise strong families based on hardworking and nation building values.
Fransina Kahungu is the secretary of the Swapo Party Women’s Council. The views expressed herein are her own.
