Namibia: Celebrate Our Heritage

Anja Bause

1 July 2011

opinion

NEXT week (July 4 to 9) is Namibian Heritage Week, which aims to encourage all Namibians to celebrate and commit themselves to protect the country’s natural and cultural resources.

Namibia’s major heritage institutions have joined together as a team to organise Namibian Heritage Week.

They invite all Namibians to take this opportunity to appreciate the value of the heritage we have received from our ancestors and to commit ourselves to ensure that it is preserved for future generations.

Namibians are also invited to visit museums, heritage sites, art galleries, national parks or the theatre next week in celebration. The theme for the week is ‘Preserving and living memories’.

The National Heritage Council is providing free entry to Twyfelfontein World Heritage Site, Heroes’ Acre in Windhoek and other National Heritage sites throughout the week.

The National Archives of Namibia is offering an Open Day on Thursday July 7 and they are offering a ‘Find Your Ancestors’ service throughout the whole week.

The National Art Gallery Of Namibia (NAGN) and Arts Association Heritage Trust are inviting all art and history students to take part in a poster design competition ‘Preserve Our History’. The competition will run to August 15 and designs should be submitted to NAGN.

Museums and heritage sites in the regions are organising their own local events. For example, the Ombalantu Boabab Heritage Tree Centre and Outapi War Museum are offering free tours to school groups.

The National Museum of Namibia opposite the Alte Feste Museum in Robert Mugabe Avenue is organising an Open Week during which groups of schoolchildren, the public and visitors will have the opportunity to look ‘behind the scenes’ at some of the important collections of the museum.

Visitors will have the opportunity to get explanations on the collecting, preserving, curating and researching of the different collections. The collections are entomology, herpetology, arachnology, mamology , archaeology, ornithology and history.

Visitors can see special things which are not in the main collections exhibited at the Owela and Alte Feste Museum.

Each department has identified a small section which they will exhibit and explain to the visitors, like the entomology department which will show a comparison of insects found in Namibia and what their counterparts look like in neighbouring countries.

The herpetology department will have seven terrariums on display with venomous snakes like the spitting cobra, the boomslang and non-venomous snakes such as the mole snake.

The anthropology department will display ancient tools, materials and finished crafts made from wood, iron, leather and pottery. In the archaeology department people can see and get explanations on stone hand axes made about two million years ago.

The arachnology department will explain the importance of arachnids in the ecosystem and their vital role in nature. Eight different indigenous types of spiders, scorpions and haarskeerders or sun spiders will be on display.

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