Our aims at NCCV

The purpose of the charity is to establish and run a children’s centre in the northern area of Kunene Region, Namibia. More specifically, Kaokoland, Opuwo Town and the surrounding areas.

It is hoped the centre will provide care for the orphans and vulnerable children of the area and in some cases give support to their families. The aim is to provide food, shelter when necessary, clothes, school fees (again when necessary), and to support access to medical care.

When the centre is established education will also be a focal point of the charity – the co-ordinator will endeavour to work alongside the Ministry of Education to promote access to education for OVC’s. Namibia has a strong ‘Education for All’ policy and therefore support will be given to enable the children to attend and to remain in school. The centre will provide remedial lessons to enable the children who are failing, to keep up.

Another long term goal of the charity is to enlist the help of local people to provide tuition in practical skills for the children. This is to enable independent living in adulthood. Part of this objective is to work alongside the NFPDN, National Federation of People with Disabilities in Namibia, who are based in the same area and very active in promoting life-skills education.

Another objective would be to establish a garden as early as possible to grow nutritional food. Fruit and vegetables are scarce in this area and the children, even those who have access to fairly regular meals, eat a diet that is very low in nutritional value. Children are often sick and would benefit greatly from a wider variety of fresh grown food – this is of paramount importance for the children who are HIV positive.

Many children in the area are home based carers for sick parents or siblings – child headed families are commonplace. The main aim of this charity is to work alongside Namibian organisations to support the children, to help prolong their lives, relieve some of their burden and give them back even a small part of their childhood.