Our visit to the Warehouse Theatre
Most recently me and a few other participants from the Physically Active Youth centre (PAY) and our coordinators Nenad Tomic and Marie Jeanne Ndimbira visited the Warehouse theatre down town. The point of the event held there was to have a open dialogue between representative of varies political parties and the community or at least just those who wore present .The structure of the interaction was that every person who got a chance from both the representatives and audience to speak only had 60 seconds before a bell was rung to indicate that time was up .
SWAPO, SWANU, APP, COD, RDP, DTA, NUDO, CHRISTIAN…..and NEFF were nine of the political parties present. Among the host was one of our own Marry jean Ndimbira and a former PAY participant Patrick Sam. The system was that we the audience had to ask the representative questions about the topics applied and what they would do if we voted them into power.
The topics we focused on wore Education, mining, health, housing and development. A few ask very important question like, “Why is that Namibians can only afford cars rather than a decent home”?. What is being done or what will be done to provide proper housing to those living in shacks? Tertiary education must be free. What will each party do concerning development? And most importantly HOW it will be seen through once it has been implied.
I too ask a question and it was directly to the opposition parties and I quote, “Why don’t the parties make an impact before we vote for them so we can know what to expect when they are in power and for the underdevelopment of Namibia I blame the ruling party and How will all our suggestions and their implementation’s be seen through.
Because I was quite tense it slipped my mind to ask the most important question that has been bugging me since I read about it in the newspaper a few months back, about the N$500miliion they use to repair the parliament after it was allegedly damaged by the rain and to me this absolutely ridiculous. Is this just a way to swindle money and blind our people by making them think it is important because it’s our “parliament, where our countries decisions are made”. With this sum of money we could have build a stadium the size of the Emirates in London , dozens of Eiffel towers and a building more divine as the Empire States building(of cause in the sense of our currency value). Our people are living shacks that can’t even withstand a cup of water, our own don’t even have proper water to drink and the government uses a very sum of money for repairs and its sad to say that our government doesn’t care about its own people. If it were up to me it would make no difference to make the countries decisions under a tree.
Nonetheless we to had fun and the most interesting part came after the dialogue cause then the SWAPO official called me and ask my age and I said 16 and for a few seconds he was silent and peculiarly asked me way am I at a very young age blaming the ruling party. I briefly explained that after 24 years of independence I don’t think they have done enough to say that they deserve another 5 years to continue development. He than said that development is a slow process and that we are a young country etc. then I ask way is that in a country that Is one of the riches in Africa is still suffering as if independence was gained yesterday Dr………said that there are countries that have been independent for more than 50 years but are still worse than Namibia, I then added that we have pretty much all the resources they don’t have, he smiled and said they have outgoing to Angola and he wants to take me along because he wants me to actual witness the circumstances there and relate to ours. We than ended the argument by them taking my personal details and saying good bye . Now what difference would it make they take me to Angola what about the rest of Namibia who witness every day how we struggle why not take all of us instead if they really want to prove a point?
To me it was a very good platform because gave people like me got a chance to express how we feel and what we think should be done or improved and yes loved it and enjoyed it.