A German delegation of 11 from Frieburg/Baden- Wurttenberg this week, visited the University of Namibia on a fact finding mission for possible cooperation between various German universities and the University of Namibia. The main areas of collaboration will focus on Namibian and German History, culture and heritage.

“We have 15 active agreements with German universities, and are excited at the prospect of having more impactful partnerships” voiced UNAM Vice- Chancellor, Professor Kenneth Matengu during his welcoming remarks.

The German delegation was led by State Secretary, Petra Olschowski from the Ministry of Science, Research and Arts. She expressed that they have in July launched a Namibia Initiative, in which they want to focus on re-writing Namibian-German history with the help of Namibian partners to ensure that not one voice dominates. “We think that this is important for re-conciliation, and it is important for people to understand what happened”, remarked Olschowski.

The agreement hopes to enhance dialogue between different cultures and combine different disciplines such as history, anthropology, literature linguistics as well as practitioners from archives and Museums.

The Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Prof Jairos Kangira, praised the initiative, mentioning existing partnerships and some of the good work by the German Language Section at UNAM.