Our aim is to create an environmentally savvy, eco-conscious space for rest, work and retreats, with the intention of also contributing to poverty reduction and employment, such as internship opportunities for gender diverse youth to gain work experience.
We have arrived as Namibian women, as gender diverse communities, we are arriving to ourselves, and we move ahead with those that paved the way for our collective liberation and care. Feminists in Namibia are arriving to claim power, their bodies, their land. The revolution starts with an imagination, a dream, an idea of a world that we all want to live in, where we are economically thriving and building autonomous institutions. We never imagined a funding model that is as radical, that sees the long-term vision, as this partnership with Baring Foundation does. We have always dreamed of partners that saw our struggles and the big picture vison that we have.
The Young Feminist Movement (Y-Fem) was established in Swakopmund in 2009 by Florence F /Khaxas. The organization was founded out of a need to develop an analysis of the situation facing young women in Erongo region. It started off with feminist consciousness-raising meetings in 10 villages and towns in the region. Over the years Y-Fem has developed into a national movement support organization which organizes herself around problems such as poverty and unemployment, lack of education and training opportunities, HIV & AIDS, sex work, ignorance about sexuality, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), early cohabitation and forced marriage, sexual harassment, teenage and unwanted pregnancy leading to school drop-outs and unsafe abortion, domestic violence, incest and rape, and lack of leadership skills among young women.
To address these concerns, we employ a feminist analysis to investigate and develop solutions to test in our regions of operation. Y-Fem actively advocates for the leadership of and reproductive justice for lesbians, rural, urban, indigenous cis and trans adolescent girls, young women, non-binary youth, HIV+ women, and their movements and organizations. We want them to enjoy respect in a safe and just world.
Advocating for human rights to redress the gender and structural inequities that limit the lives of women has at times put us under threat. One of our first goals in redressing and shifting the power has been to ensure the physical and emotional security of the Young Feminists movement (Y-Fem Namibia Trust) and that of the broader Namibians in all their diversity, including queer and feminist movements.
The majority of us Namibians have no security when it comes to access to land. Colonial legacies live on in the systematic inequalities around us. Around 1.6 million people in Namibia are living in poverty, as defined by the World Bank. Violence against women and girls is further exacerbated by harmful cultural practices. COVID-19 laid bare the stark inequalities and weaknesses in healthcare systems within and among countries.
Today the HASEGO House is physical manifestation of Y-Fem’s goal to build a sustainable organization that can empower itself and its staff by creating an emotional and physical safe space which is innovative in strengthening culture, knowledge production and collaboration.
HASEGO House is an independent feminist social enterprise which is community-focused and operates as a hospitality and conferencing establishment. Our aim is to create an environmentally savvy, eco-conscious space for rest, work and retreats, with the intention of also contributing to poverty reduction and employment, such as internship opportunities for gender diverse youth to gain work experience. We provide:
- a space to meet and collaborate
- a hospitality school, with a cultural culinary experience that celebrates rich Namibian cultures
- a space for human rights defenders to heal from burnout
- a space of memory and archive.
However, HASEGO House is not just a place; it’s a movement that shifts the power to create a just world that all we thrive in; a space of creation, a space of learning.
Funding cuts, together with the effects of neo-liberalism and capitalism have negatively affected NGO sustainability. As a feminist organization, we are rethinking the old NGO framework and strategy that left us in a cycle of donor dependency. We want to transform CSOs into thriving solidarity economies where we look beyond advocacy to build sustainable communities guided by love and action that contribute to the safety and protection of the most vulnerable. HASEGO House has created healthier communities that are continuously reflecting, learning and unlearning.
Money is political; young feminists must speak with courage to empower communities to find solutions to their own problems, investing in sustainable solutions such as community safe spaces as a way to end inequality and claim reparation from the colonial legacies which still influence policies.
The investment by the Baring Foundation goes beyond funding; it’s a long-term investment that is creating spaces focused on healing justice for women. When I say HASEGO, I lift my fist in the air as a commitment to the values of African feminists, to be led with love, peace, wealth and justice.