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Press Release

SWAPO PARTY YOUTH LEAGUE SOLIDARITY STATEMENT BY DR. ELIJAH NGURARE, SECRETARY OF SWAPO PARTY YOUTH LEAGUE, AS DELIVERED AT THE SWAPO PARTY WOMEN COUNCIL CONGRESS, SWAKOPMUND, 8TH DECEMBER 2011  

Director of Ceremonies,
Comrade Petrina Namutenya Haingura,
Secretary of SWAPO Party Women Council
Comrades Members of Central Committee of SPWC
Comrades Delegates
All Protocol Observed

 




I am happy and humbled by the opportunity to deliver this Solidarity Statement to this historic Congress of the SWAPO Party Women Council. The SWAPO Party Youth League salutes you our mothers. To us, you are the symbol of strength for our Party and country; to us SWAPO Party Women Council is the best; to us the women of SWAPO rocks; and to us it is cool to be in the presence vibrant and visionary delegates of the SWAPO Party Women Council from all over our contrastingly beautiful Namibia, Land of the Brave.

Comrades, you are assembled here in Swakopmund as delegates from all 13 Regions and 107 Constituencies of Namibia with one aim only namely to honour the provision of your Constitution and you are here therefore because of SWAPO Party and SWAPO Party Women Council. In other words, it is important that you are here as messengers for women empowerment and women development, nothing more nothing less.

Director of Ceremonies, Comrade Delegates

Forty years ago, the historic SWAPO Consultative Congress held at Tanga, Tanzania created the Wings  of SWAPO namely the SWAPO Women Council, SWAPO Elders Council,  SWAPO Youth League and the National Union of Namibia Workers.

The Political Programme of SWAPO Party as adopted  by the first Congress of SWAPO in an independent Namibia, December 6th – 12th, 1991, in Windhoek, provided Guidelines for Action to all organs, wings and affiliated bodies. According to this Guidelines for Action, the SWAPO Party Women Council  is tasked:

1. To promote the understanding that throughout historical times gender roles and status have been stratified to the disadvantage of the women folk;
2. To cultivate a conscious effort for gender awareness in development planning, social services and all spheres of national life; and
3. To design a specific strategy to facilitate the speedy elimination of traditional practices which deny women matrimonial inheritance and other constitutional rights.

 

Dear Comrade Delegates, these three tasks, in my view, constitute the political trinity which I believe the SPWC should preoccupy itself with in a free and independent Namibia. Even as you meet here in Swakopmund this week may you be guided by these Guidelines for Action. This is the expectation of your members in all 107 Constituencies of our free and independent Namibia. In other words, you must all become soldiers for gender equality, women empowerment and development, and the total eradication of discrimination against women. The election of your new leaders must be guided by the capacity to implement this Political Trinity.

Dear Esteemed Comrade members and leaders of the SWAPO Party Women Council; be mindful that whenever divisions occur in our midst it is a reflection against us as a society, because it is better for men to be divided but when women are divided the households of hope will not stand. A woman is an epicenter of the household, society and therefore the nation. We look to you therefore to inspiration and not to desperation; we look to you for exemplary and moral leadership and not for divisive leadership. Indeed, young women who are members of the SWAPO Party Youth League daily ask us that they want to join the SWAPO Party Women Council. But that they are concerned with certain things they see some in the SPWC are doing. Young female students want to join but they are uncertain to do so because of what they see happening in SPWC. Young girls who are in SWAPO Pioneer Movement want to join SPWC when they reach 18 years old but they are hesitant because the picture is not that clear.

Therefore, in closing, my respected comrades in the SWAPO Party Women Council, I plead with you to be our political mothers who are united around issues of bread and butter exclusively. I plead with you to be women comrades who are proud of themselves and vow never to be used by anybody outside this SPWC. I plead with you to be exemplary members and leaders of our SPWC but also become proud mirrors of our respective communities and the nation at large. I plead with you to take all your hatred, disunity, tribalism, racism, corruption, regionalism and all other retrogressive tendencies that hampers progress of SPWC; go and throw it into the sea and leave Swakopmund after your historic Congress united, replenished, refreshed, rejuvenated, resurrected and above all re-charged with the boundless energy of SWAPO Party anchored in the time-tested ideas of Solidarity, Freedom and  Social Justice. And we know you can. SWAPO; United; SWAPO; Victorious; and Now, Hard Work.

I thank you very much.