MINISTRY CLEANS UP

8 DECEMBER 2008
WINDHOEK

The Minister for Information, Communication and Technology, The Honourable Joel Kapaanda, officially launched the “Nationhood and National Pride” campaign at the Ministry’s media room on Monday, 8 December 2008 at 16:00.

The campaign aims to galvanise support from all patriotic Namibians to fight vandalism and to promote hygiene and sanitation, thereby instilling a sense of national pride. The campaign will be coordinated by the Ministry as a nationwide, coherent strategy involving regional and local councils, as well as traditional leaders.

The first project of the campaign will be an urban clean-up of the northern town of Rundu from 11 to 13 December 2008. The project will be coordinated with the assistance of the Youth League in Rundu, with about 30 volunteers participating.

Sponsorship for the project has been secured by GAWA, a recently launched non-profit organisation with the aim of leading and growing the “Green Movement” in Namibia. GAWA has canvassed the support of various partners on this project: Cell One donated 50 t-shirts and caps toward the clean-up project; Shell Namibia contributed a cash donation of N$2 500, which will be used to buy cleaning materials for the volunteers; and Multi-Pac Namibia has offered the purchase of said materials at cost price.

Gareth Amos, Founder of GAWA, presented a cheque worth 5 000 Namibian CO2 credits to the Rundu Clean-Up Project. These credits, at this stage, are only indicative of the real value of CO2 credits, but are based on the international CO2 Carbon Credit Exchange, which is a tangible, measurable mechanism for offsetting an organisation’s CO2 footprint.

However, through GAWA’s recent partnership with an international CO2 specialist organisation, GAWA will be able to deliver real C02 credits for such initiatives, based upon guidelines as set forward by the Kyoto Agreement.

The Namibian Government therefore encourages all Namibian companies who engage in “green” initiatives, to align themselves with GAWA to counteract the current environmental crisis and to earn CO2 credits to reduce their carbon footprint.