Recent Initiatives
KPF 2022 Annual Project Report
N//oq'an!'ae Online, internet and language transcriptions
Contact: Megan Laws, Kerry Jones, Jennifer Hays
Location: Tsumkwe, Namibia
Status: Ongoing
This project involves a community internet infrastructure and voucher system with Fridrick /Kunta and Megan Biesele.
Cost: $6,121.35 (USD)
Village Cleanup
Contact: Leon Tsamkxao
Location: Tsumkwe, Namibia
Status: Successfully Completed
This project involved trash pickup of buildup caused
by withdrawal of government garbage services with volunteer work by village young
people and vehicle loans by NNDFN and local people's organization.
Cost: $1,123.00 (USD)
=Khomani San Water Needs Support
Contact: Fleming Puckett
Location: Upington, South Africa
Status: Ongoing
This project involves supplying village water provision with Luce Steenkamp.
Cost: $2,628.39 (USD)
Nyae Nyae Preschool Playgroup
Contact: Melissa Heckler, Alexandra Parrs
Location: Tsumkwe, Namibia
Status: Ongoing
This project involves community and parental cooperation in village playgroups for preschoolers with
Melissa Heckler and TUCSIN-Tsumkwe Education Projects.
Cost: $2,596.37 (USD)
Water Needs for Nyae Nyae Conservancy
Contact: Saskia den-Adel Sheehama;
Location: Nyae Nyae, Namibia;
Status: Successfully Completed
This project involved installing a solar pump for the Makuri village with NNDFN.
Cost: $3,291.20 (USD)
Total KPF Expenses (2022): $15,760.31 (USD)
Nyae Nyae Playgroup Project
The Nyae Nyae Village Playgroup Project was implemented in 2016 to provide preschool Juǀ’hoan children background knowledge and experience in preparation for the transition to learning environments starkly different from a village learning environment. Through building self confidence in a child’s early years, we hope to lessen the culture shock Juǀ’hoan children and their parents experience when attending enclosed, highly structured, Western style classrooms. Each village receives as a gift a sturdy rubberized box filled with early learning materials and an initial three visits to demonstrate to families how to use the materials. Included in the bins are books with simple text and actual photographs from the project. Through this preparation in the preschool years, our hope is to reduce the high drop-out rate from the Village Schools and the Tsumkwe Public Schools. Parents and other village adults have responded enthusiastically to the Playgroup Project. In addition, the Traditional Authority of Nyae Nyae and the Nyae Nyae Conservation have approved this ongoing project and given an oral report each year. KPF receives a written report.
Photo Credit: Bruce Parcher
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Botswana
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Providing funding for cell-phone "airtime" to support long-distance conversations about human rights issues in schools among San organizations during COVID lockdowns.
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Working to support the efforts of those distributing soap and hand sanitizer to San communities in Central Botswana and Western Ngamiland.
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Supporting the translation of COVID-19 information into a variety of southern African languages, including !Xun, Ju|'hoan, G|ui, G||ana, and Naro.
Namibia
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Facilitated translations, logistical support, and fuel funding for the distribution of COVID-19 guidelines in English and Ju|'hoansi, soap, disinfectant, washing powder, maize meal, and schoolbooks to Nyae Nyae communities.
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Namibian internet project via Africa Online to promote connections and communications. (See below for more details!)
South Africa
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Funding access to clean drinking water for the ǂKhomani San community at Andriesvale.
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Supporting African Tongue's work to translate COVID-related materials into !Xun, Khwedam, Afrikaans, and Khoekhoegowab for communities in South Africa and Namibia.
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Funding a local NGO, SASDO to bundle and distribute soap, masks, and COVID-19 information to the !Xun and Khwe of Platfontein.
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Monitoring the situation of the Platfontein residents.
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Click here for a video about the current situation there.
Across Southern Africa
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Supporting the translation of COVID-19 information into local languages.
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Visit our new GUIDANCE FOR MINORITY LANGUAGE SPEAKERS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA page!
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KPF's English-language COVID-19 information templates have sent to linguists and others working with click-speaking indigenous Hadza and Sandawe people of Tanzania.
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KPF is grateful to the Heinrich Barth Institute for Archaeology and Environmental History of Africa at the University of Cologne for a grant of 500 Euros to our Namibian internet project.
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South Africa decommissioned its Jupiter satellite in August 2020, and KPF was enabled via Africa Online to connect to a new satellite.
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This grant was arranged by Dr. Tilman Lenssen-Erz of Cologne's Africa Research Unit, Institute of Prehistoric Archaeology. Many thanks from KPF and from N||oaq!'ae Online!
For the latest COVID-19 infection rates and data across the continent and globe, please visit the Johns Hopkins COVID-19 map HERE.
Photos of current KPF projects in Nyae Nyae, Omaheke, Platfontein, and the ǂKhomani Farms:
Who we are: Kalahari Peoples Fund
The Kalahari Peoples Fund was founded in 1973 by members of the Harvard Kalahari Research Group and has held 501(c)(3) status since 1978. For almost 40 years, our organization has been composed of volunteer professional anthropologists, development workers, linguists, educators and other experts who have worked closely with these peoples and are familiar with their contemporary situations.
Photos © 2020 Kalahari Peoples Fund
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