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Ellen Ndeshi Namhila (born 1964), is a librarian by profession, author and currently serving as a Pro-vice Chancellor of the University of Namibia for Administration, Finance and Resource Mobilisation. She is on a five-year leave of absence from her job as the head of the university's library. [1]
In 1976, at the age of 12, Namhila endured an attack by the South African Defence Force in her home area. She was injured, as bullets went through her arms and legs. She was rescued to her home village, and later she fled to Angola and worked as a nurse in a SWAPO guerrilla camp.
She went to high school in Gambia, and pursued further studies in Finland, at the University of Tampere, where she studied information science. [1] She graduated in 1993, and the title of her M.A. thesis was Rural development communication in Namibia: an Owambo case study. [2] Later, in 2015, she defended her doctoral thesis in Tampere. [1] The title of her thesis was Recordkeeping and missing "Native estate" records in Namibia: an investigation of colonial gaps in a post-colonial national archive. [3]
As the vice rector of UNAM, she is responsible e.g. for human resources, economy and information technology and the buildings of the university.
In 1997, she published a book titled "The Price of Freedom", which is a story of an escape from a violence which ruptured a child's sense that adults provide security, of an education obtained in The Gambia and Finland, of how friends and leaders in the camps replaced her extended family. The price of freedom is Ellen's biography of her journey as a refugee and a returner to her newly independent country. [4] This book has been used in the University of Namibia for the English Access for years. In 2005, she again published a book titled "Kaxumba KaNdola" which is a biography of Namibian political activist and founding member of SWAPO. [5] The biography of Kaxumba Kandola is made up of statements by other liberation stalwarts such as Andimba Toivo yaToivo and Helao Sityuwete, and family members, neighbours, and friends from Kaxumba’s early and later life, interspersed with the author’s narrative. [6] In 2009 she published "Tears of Courage: Five Mothers Five Stories One Victory " [7]
Samuel Shafiishuna Daniel Nujoma, is a Namibian revolutionary, anti-apartheid activist and politician who served three terms as the first President of Namibia, from 1990 to 2005. Nujoma was a founding member and the first president of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) in 1960. Before 1960, SWAPO was known as the Ovambo People's Organisation (OPO). He played an important role as leader of the national liberation movement in campaigning for Namibia's political independence from South African rule. He established the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN) in 1962 and launched a guerrilla war against the apartheid government of South Africa in August 1966 at Omugulugwombashe, beginning after the United Nations withdrew the mandate for South Africa to govern the territory. Nujoma led SWAPO during the lengthy Namibian War of Independence, which lasted from 1966 to 1989.
The Ovambo people, also called Aawambo, Ambo, Aawambo, or Ovawambo (Kwanyama), are a Bantu ethnic group native to Southern Africa, primarily modern Namibia. They are the single largest ethnic group in Namibia, accounting for about half of the population. Despite concerted efforts from Christian missionaries to wipe out what were believed to be 'pagan practices', they have retained many aspects of their cultural practices. They are also found in the southern Angolan province of Cunene, where they are more commonly referred to as "Ambo". The Ovambo consist of a number of kindred Bantu ethnic tribes who inhabit what was formerly called Ovamboland. In Angola, they are a minority, accounting for about two percent of the total Angolan population.
Ovamboland, also referred to as Owamboland, was a Bantustan and later a non-geographic ethnic-based second-tier authority, the Representative Authority of the Ovambos, in South West Africa.
Ondangwa is a town in the Oshana Region of northern Namibia, bordering the Oshikoto Region. Ondangwa was first established as a mission station of the Finnish Missionary Society in 1890. In 1914, it became a local seat of government.
Hage Gottfried Geingob was a Namibian politician who served as the third president of Namibia and Commander-in-Chief of the Namibian Defence Force (NDF) from 2015 until his death in February 2024. Geingob was the first Prime Minister of Namibia from 1990 to 2002, and served as prime minister again from 2012 to 2015. Between 2008 and 2012 Geingob served as Minister of Trade and Industry. In November 2014, Geingob was elected president of Namibia by an overwhelming margin. In November 2017, Geingob became the third president of the ruling SWAPO Party after winning by a large margin at the party's sixth Congress. He served as the party's president until his death. In August 2018, Geingob began a one-year term as chairperson of the Southern African Development Community.
Herman Andimba Toivo ya Toivo was a Namibian anti-apartheid activist, politician and political prisoner. Ya Toivo was active in the pre-independence movement, and is one of the co-founders of the South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) in 1960, and before that, its predecessor the Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) in 1959.
The Ovambo language is a dialect cluster spoken by the Ovambo people in southern Angola and northern Namibia, of which the written standards are Kwanyama and Ndonga.
The Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) was a nationalist organization that existed between 1959 and 1960 in South West Africa. The aim of the organization was to end the South African colonial administration, and the placement of South West Africa under the United Nations Trusteeship system. Andimba Toivo ya Toivo had founded its predecessor, the Ovamboland People's Congress, in 1957 in Cape Town, South Africa. In 1959, Sam Nujoma and Jacob Kuhangua established the Ovamboland People's Organization (OPO) at the Old Location in Windhoek. Sam Nujoma was the president of OPO until its transformation into the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) a year later and remained president until Namibia gained independence in 1990.
Helao Shityuwete is a Namibian author and former politician and military commander. After Namibia gained independence in 1990, Shityuwete published his autobiography titled "Never Follow the Wolf" which chronicled his time on Robben Island as well as his trial for involvement in the Namibian War of Independence as commander of the People's Liberation Army of Namibia, the military wing of the South West Africa People's Organization.
Heroes' Acre is an official war memorial of the Republic of Namibia. Built into the uninhabited hills 10 kilometres (6 mi) south of the city centre of Windhoek, Heroes' Acre opened on 26 August 2002. It was created to "foster a spirit of patriotism and nationalism, and to pass [this] to the future generations of Namibia".
Andreas Zack Shipanga was a Namibian politician known for the "Shipanga Rebellion", a movement within SWAPO that sought to elect a new leadership and whose followers were in response detained without trial. Imprisoned for two years following this fall-out, Shipanga was arrested and held in detention in Zambia then Tanzania until 1978. After his release from prison he founded the opposing SWAPO Democrats and served as minister in different portfolios in the Transitional Government of National Unity, the interim government of South-West Africa directly before Namibian independence.
Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila is a Namibian politician who has served as the Prime Minister of Namibia since 2015. She is a member of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) and has been a member of the National Assembly of Namibia since 1995. She served as Minister of Finance from 2003 to 2015. She is the first woman to serve as Prime Minister of Namibia.
Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah is a Namibian politician who is Namibia's third and current vice president since February 2024. She previously served as the deputy prime minister of Namibia from 2015 to 2024. Currently the SWAPO vice president, and has retained her position and is set to become the party's first female presidential candidate in November 2024. She has also served as Namibia's Minister of International Relations and Cooperation since December 2012. From March 2010 to December 2012, she was Minister of Environment and Tourism. Nandi-Ndaitwah is a member of SWAPO, Namibia's ruling party, and a long-time member of the National Assembly. In 2017, Nandi-Ndaitwah was elected vice-president of the Swapo Party at the party's 6th Congress. She is the first woman to serve in that position.
Monica Nashandi is a Namibian diplomat and politician. Nashandi was Namibia's ambassador to Scandinavian countries as well as the former High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. Nashandi was removed from the SWAPO list for the 2009 general election because she had not registered to vote, a requirement under Namibian law. Nashandi was Namibia's ambassador to the United States of America from 2019 to 2020.
Voice of Namibia (VoN) was a pirate radio station propagating Namibian independence, and the political mouthpiece of the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO) during the Namibian War of Independence. It operated from 1966 until Namibian independence in 1990 from different hosting stations in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Eliaser Inamutwika Noah Tuhadeleni, nom de guerre: Kaxumba ka Ndola was a Namibian anti-apartheid activist, guerrilla fighter and political prisoner. He was one of the co-founders of the Ovamboland People's Congress in Cape Town, South Africa and became one of the first participants of the Namibian War of Independence. Tuhadeleni also took part in the battle of Omugulugwombashe, which was the first battle of the Namibian War of Independence.
Reverend Theophilus Hingashikuka Hamutumbangela was a Namibian anti-apartheid activist, priest, and leading international promoter of Namibian independence, working alongside British anti-apartheid activist Reverend Michael Scott.
The University of Namibia Press, UNAM Press, is the dedicated scholarly publishing unit of the University of Namibia and is based at the Windhoek main campus. Established in 2002, it was officially inaugurated in February 2012 and has to date published books on history, law, language and science. Books published by the University of Namibia Press are distributed internationally by the African Books Collective.
Lahja Anna-Maija Lehtonen was a Finnish missionary who worked for a long time in Ovamboland, Namibia. She held a master's degree in the English language from the University of Helsinki, and she was known as the long time English teacher of the Oshigambo High School, which she co-founded together with Toivo Tirronen in 1960.
Ndeutala Angolo, also known as NdeutalaSelma Hishongwa and Ndeutala Angolo Amutenya, is a Namibian writer and political activist.
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