Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia

  Date: 18-20 March 2016  Students and Community members  The planning studio is a platform that brings the residents of informal settlements and students from the University of Science and Technology (NUST) Town and Regional Planning department, shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia and Gobabis Municipality officials to work together in planning for the settlement; the process gives   the students a practical experience in planning with the community. Happy about collecting data The students and community carried out a situational analysis as part of the studio. The Kanaan C planning studio follows the successful planning and design of the freedom square layout for Gobabis, for 2014-2015. Community, students, lecturer, and a Municipal official held a meeting to introduce the students to the community and have a discussion around the development needs of the community and completed a settlement...

The Shack Dwellers Federation-Namibia Housing Action Group and the Namibia Statistics Agency signed a Memorandum of Understanding ,   in order to set out respective areas of cooperation , the  Honorable Deputy minister of Urban and Rural Development D J Klazen gave a key note at the ceremony .  From left: Mr. Osia Kaakuha Director of operation NSA, Ms. Ndamona Kali Acting Statitian General NSA, Dr. Anna Muller  NHAG National Coordinator, Ms. Edith  Mbanga and Hon. D J Klazen Deputy Minister of Urban and Rural Development . The Hon. Councillor of the Moses Garueb Constituency David Martin welcomed the members , saying we are moving towards improving the houses in the settlement to brick houses . The Councillor was  instrumental  in the data collection process for the federation in Havana.   Standing: Hon, Councillor of Moses Garuab Constituency David Martin Welcoming the members The Namib...

Minister of Urban and Rural Development says government is committed to uplift the living conditions of all citizens. Sophia Shaningwa says government needs a helping hand from other stakeholders in order to address the housing backlog in the country. She was speaking at the occasion on Friday the 16th October where the First Lady of the Republic of Namibia and patron of the federation Monica Geingos officially handed over 36 houses to members of the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia at Omuthiya in the Oshikoto Region. Besides handing over the Houses, Geingos and Shaningwa participated in the servicing of plots and making bricks for 29 new houses to be constructed at Omuthiya.

Persistence, celebration and the First Lady's help have turned around the fortunes of women's savings organisations helping to meet Namibia's housing needs. Read more: http://www.iied.org/namibias- women-lead-way-housing- development#.VfKrPxeRtWA.email

Watch Video here.... http://namibia-shackdwellers.blogspot.com/2015/08/community-driven-sanitation-project.html

“I have not seen an institution as serious as the federation. I am happy with what you have achieved,” “Do not give up engaging the government. If you fall down, stand up again. I assure you that there will come a time that they will hear what you say. Rome was not build in one day. Never give up, ” said Khomas Regional Governor, Laura McLeod-Katjirua in her speech during SDFN national meeting on the 13th of June 2015. The purpose of the meeting was to share 6 months regional progress reports and plans on savings, projects, repayments of loans and enumerations. Watch video here   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAPLyetWXGU

Announcing preliminary results from 33,272 household surveys   The preliminary informal settlements socioeconomic survey results were presented by the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia (SDFN) at the Community Land Information Programme (CLIP) review on 25 September 2014 at the Habitat Research and Development Centre in Windhoek.   The data presented was collected by informal settlement residents in collaboration with their Local and Regional Authorities in 116 informal settlements in 64 urban areas in Namibia through the CLIP. The first profiling of informal settlements was completed in 2008 when communities profiled 235 informal settlements (with an estimated population of 500,000) with the support of the SDFN and the Namibia Housing Action Group (NHAG).  The second phase of CLIP, which is the door-to-door socioeconomic enumeration of households and settlement mapping, to date covered a total 33,276 households with a total 213,459 occupants in both informal ...

The planning for the freedom square informal settlement was preceded by three very important rituals , which did not form part of the planning studios as such , but were critical to building bridges for the community and local authority to reach a common understanding on the way forward . These include - enumerations  exchanges  building of partnerships : watch the video for the planning process 

Through the Shack Dwellers Federation of Namibia (SDFN), informal settlers of Tweetheni and Ehangano in Okuryangava together with the Polytechnic of Namibia’s Architecture students and lecturers started a participatory planning workshop on the 8th of April 2014 for the preparations of working models for housing solutions for these two communities. Windhoek experienced uncontrolled urban growth since independence. The situation is further aggravated by authorities not succeeding in delivering sufficient land for housing, to keep pace with the influx. Many new residents therefore had to find their own solutions by settling in informal settlements, legally or not, without security of tenure and access to water and sanitation, and Okuryangava is no exception to that.  The Tweetheni and Ehangano communities were relocated from single Quarters in 2000 due to upgrading purposes. Others came from Otjomuise, Ombili and Kilimanjaro and are leasing land from the City of Windhoek for a...

Studio 2 – Participatory Layout Design Following the first studio the community was anxious to embark on the second studio.  These studios have increased in importance considering the introduction of the Mass Housing initiative of the Government of Namibia; NHAG-SDFN proposed the participatory planning process of communities to be a cornerstone for informal settlement upgrading.  The second studio took place from 7 to 10 March 2014, involving the same group of town planning students from the Polytechnic of Namibia that participated in the first studio during September 2013, now doing layout planning as third year town planning students.  The learning during this studio was not limited to academic participants but included officials from the Ministry of Regional and Local Government, Housing and Rural Development, the Opuwo Mayor and Property Officer representing team members from the UN-Habitat Participatory Slum Upgrading Programme, a Community Development offi...