May, 2013 Initiative

Preschools, Clothing and Shoes

Footsteps For Africa will be returning to Namibia in May, 2013 to again distribute shoes and clothing to OVC as well as build preschools in Goreangab–an extremely poor suburb Windhoek, Namibia’s capital city. We are also excited to also include Zimbabwe in this initiative, where we will distribute shoes to impoverished children in and around Bulawayo. For more information on how you can contribute to this initiative, please see the Donate page.

OVC

The Namibia Demographic and Health Survey found that “the HIV/AIDS epidemic has led to a growing number of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC)… and they often lag behind other children in meeting their basic needs, for example, owning at least one pair of shoes and two sets of clothes. Only 41 percent of OVC have all these basics requirements.”

Past Initiatives

The 2011 initiative was successful in delivering thousands of clothes and shoes to needy individuals around Namibia. Footsteps For Africa worked with the Namibian government and local Namibian humanitarian organizations to distribute these goods to the most needy OVC, and these entities continue to assist Footsteps in planning our next initiative.

May, 2013

In May, 2013, we will be building preschools in addition to distributing shoes, clothing, and school supplies. We are focusing on Goreangab, an extremely poor suburb of Windhoek. Here, many of the schools we distributed clothing and shoes to were being held in teachers’ homes. During one visit, the teacher told us she rarely lets the children outside for fear that they will be kidnapped and/or assaulted. We knew that as part of this initiate, it was important for us to give these children a safe haven in which to learn and play.