Heritage Week 2015 – Part 2

On the 26 September 2015 the 4 participating schools; Karundu Primary School, Spes Bona Primary School, Orwetoveni Primary School, and Donatus Primary School had a final presentation in the city center of Otjiwarongo where we celebrated the finale of Heritage Week with the Otjiwarongo community. CCF education staff opened the cultural event with a brief talk about CCF and why we are interested in celebrating Namibia’s cultural heritage. Educators discussed with the community how interwoven human culture is with our natural culture and that we want the community to understand and appreciate those connections to Namibia’s natural flora and fauna.

The next part of the event was focused on the schools cultural presentations. The presentations were judged on their use of the preparatory funding, visualization and explanation of the culture, as well as on the overall presentation. All heritage week competition participants received cheetah related activity packets and lunch, while the winners, Spec Bona and Orwetoveni Primary Schools will receive an all-expenses paid weekend trip to the Cheetah Conservation Fund Field Research and Education Centre scheduled for the weekend of October 30th. All 4 schools did an amazing job preforming and representing their chosen culture and CCF educators were thrilled and honored to work with these truly inspiring youth.

Here at CCF’s Namibian center we also celebrated National Heritage Week on Friday September 25th. We asked Namibian staff dress in cultural attire for Friday and for dinner that night we had a cultural meal for all our staff and interns. Ignatius, our lead educator was in charge of gathering the cultural meal items and arranging for staff to prepare the meal. He also gave a talk about National Heritage Week and explained the cultural food items we would be eating and which Namibian culture the foods came from. There was cultural music and dance and all the staff and interns had a wonderful time learning more about Namibia and our fellow CCF team members.