DRC- Democratic Ressetlement Community

The Democratic Resettlement Community (DRC) is situated in the northeastern part of Swakopmund in the Erongo region. It was started in 2001 by the local community as temporary settlement for people, who had no means to buy their own home. 15000 people are living here under the worst conditions at the edge of the rubbish dump outside of Swakopmund. Their abode is put together by waste products. Many women are looking for food in the rubbish dump in order to feed their children.

Many of the people living here are jobless and for various reasons addicted to alcohol. The children particular are the ones suffering from these living conditions, and as a result of poverty cannot attend any school.

Without education and without work they have no hope and no perspective. During the day the children are suvervised and have the opportunity to play together. They receive a basic education in order to prepare them for school and life.

The life of the children in these quarters is shaped by the difficult conditions in the families and experience of violence are often encountered. As a result of the belief, that only a large family can provide for old age, the girls in these quarters are often falling pregnant already at a very young age.

Apart from the illness of HIV/AIDS and the lack of medical provision, the lack of proteins and vitamins cause malnutrition. The worst off are children and the youth. Many families cannot prepare a regular meal for their children, so that hunger is a wide spread problem.

The women-self-help-project renders caricatural work. Through purposeful instruction, a formal education and manual skills are conveyed and people are taught to help themselves through this.

Development aid no longer takes aim at the short-term improvement of the living conditions of the population, but rather tries to accomplish a fundamental change through conveying essential skills to make it possible for people to reach a better living standard.

A widely distributed kind of development aid is the promotion of handicraft. Within the scope of such projects women are trained in the manufacturing of various articles like jewellery, carvings, weaved items, pottery etc.. Afterwards they have the opportunity to sell their products in chosen shops – partly by negotiating their own price for their handiwork.