Dordabis orphanage grateful for enormous donation

Personal hygiene on the agenda
Roswitha Arie of the Hope Orphanage Home in Dordabis is ecstatic for the most recent donation to her home.
Iréne-Mari van der Walt
The dusty town of Dordabis was recently shaken up by an enormous donation of roughly four tonnes of hygiene and sanitary products, as well as non-perishable foods.

The donation combined the strengths of various institutions: SBS Trucking transported the goods from Wutow Trading in Windhoek to Dordabis, facilitated by Charitree and the Rob Youth Foundation.

Roswitha Arie, the founder of the Hope Orphanage Home at Dordabis, says the donation will last for the next two years.

“Dordabis has about 1 800 inhabitants and most of them are women and children. These kids are coming from disadvantaged circumstances, so we keep them here and we feed them, bathe them, we do their laundry and help with homework as well,” says Arie.

Her mother is a retired school teacher who assists the group with their homework and education where possible. “I would like to extend appreciation to my mom who assists us with these school-going kids,” she says.

The Rob Youth Foundation taught the young girls of the home about proper hygiene and use of sanitary products.

“The Rob Youth Foundation was established in 2019 with the aims to address societal problems and to eliminate youth unemployment, but at the same time we are an NGO that is tackling societal norms that we want to break,” says Tracy XXX of the Rob Youth Foundation.

She adds that the Rob Youth Foundation would like to tackle the rumoured abuse in Dordabis.

“It has been going on that there’s abuse that takes place here and we are going to emphasise the abuse that is taking place here in regards to the effects of it. We as the Rob Youth Foundation are going to tackle that problem and we are hoping to have our own social workers,” she says.

She stressed the importance of proper hygiene to the group. “We would like to urge all of you to take care of yourselves and keep a clean environment. We are still living in a pandemic, so I plead with all of you, especially the young girls, to keep a clean environment and exercise proper hygiene,” she said.