News

What's this? News?

Scholarship!

2009-12-23 20:10:10

Like a zombie rising from the grave, or a Phoenix from the ashes...

Wow, how long has it been since our last news update? Don't tell me; I don't even want to know.

Rest assured, those of you reading this (anyone?): Namibian Dreams has not died. Far from it. But let's just start from the beginning.

Back in September (!), an extraordinary young man named Alex Saddic and his band The Goaround performed a benefit concert for our organization. I had met Alex during a visit I paid to Kathryn's and my old high school, West Chester East, when I was given a chance by Victoria Croul, one of the English teachers there, to talk about our experiences in Namibia and our efforts as an organization. That was a while ago -- like, in the spring.

Alex contacted me privately a day or two later to tell me about his idea for a benefit concert. Naturally grateful for his enthusiasm and excited about the idea, I gave him the thumbs-up and awaited further news from him.

Well, to cut a long story short, The Goaround blew our expectations completely out of the water: they raised nearly $1000 -- a thousand dollars -- all of which was donated to Namibian Dreams.

This was a game-changing moment for us. Whereas we had previously been thinking about putting whatever money was raised towards purchasing a few microscopes for a primary school, the money raised by The Goaround was enough to get us thinking about an entirely new prospect: starting a scholarship.

This is no joke: tuition at UNAM, the University of Namibia, is nowhere near what it is in the U.S. (not surprisingly), and so $1000 is actually enough to pay for a full year of college for a student who will be living on-campus, or almost two years for a student living off-campus.

We've contacted UNAM about starting a scholarship program with them (it's called a bursary there), and they've been very receptive to the idea. So that's what we're working on now, and that's got us quite excited.

Obviously, a LOT of time has passed since we last posted any updates to the site; that's partially because not a whole lot has been going on -- aside from the amazing news I just mentioned, of course! -- but also because, well, we have been busy. Clearly that is an obstacle that all organizations of this nature eventually have to deal with: the people behind every such organization have lives, and those lives have a way of interfering with their grand visions for the organization. Fortunately, even if there hasn't been much news from us lately, that doesn't mean we've given up on our vision. On the contrary, armed with these newfound funds, we are full of optimism for the next year.

I (Dan) have also been wanting for some time to make some upgrades to the site, tech-wise; so that's probably something that will be happening in the near future. Other than that, expect for there to be updates posted on the site as soon as we have more news to share -- and we promise, this time, they'll be a little less few and far between!

That's all for now. Happy holidays, everyone!