Volunteers' year - 04-06-2001

WINDHOEK: Chairperson of the Namibia National Committee on the International Year of Volunteers, Penda Kiiyala has appealed to the Namibian people to volunteer themselves and assist others who are less fortunate than them in any way they can, be it materially, morally and financially.

Kiiyala was speaking to Nampa at the IYV 2001 Dance whose aim was to raise funds to facilitate the activities of the committee throughout the year as well as to assist the United Nations in networking to sensitise all those who want to become volunteers. He challenged the country’s citizens to form a Namibian Volunteers Organisation by the end of this year to encourage all citizens to participate in the United Nation Volunteers (UNV) programme. He said:

“Namibia is a child of International Solidarity and most of the support we get from friends was based on the spirit of voluntarism and conviction.” He added: “Since we have benefited from this international solidarity we also need to assist a lot of other people who are less fortunate.” He said that among the activities during this Volunteers’ Year are a clean up campaign around Windhoek, Producing Tshirts with IYV logo for sale to generate income for the rest of the activities and an athletics competition between Parliamentarians against 10 volunteers next month.

“In order to share information in voluntarism we are compiling a quarterly news letter, the first of its kind in Africa,” Kiiyala said. The IYV Namibian National Committee is made up of representatives from government, local and international NGO’s, diplomatic corps and academics. It was launched on 12 February 2001. The year 2001 was proclaimed in November 1997 by the United Nations General Assembly as the International year of Volunteers. (NAMPA)