Staff Reporter
THE One Economy Foundation has responded to the Chairperson of the “Stop Homosexuality in Namibia” movement, and has denied allegations that its BeFree/Dreams subjects are promoting sexual immorality among the Namibian youth.
In his petition handed in to the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture, Pendapala Nakathingo demanded that “The Ministry of Education to (sic) suspend or withdraw a Be Free/Dreams subjects (new curriculum) (sic) and all programs teaching our children about sexual immorality at a very young age”.
“This is not the first time falsehoods about #BeFree have been spread on platforms controlled by Mr Nakathingo. We reiterate that there is no truth in the malicious suggestions and statements that Nakathingo is spreading. We sincerely hope that this media statement will henceforth result in informed and truthful commentary from Nakathingo concerning the work of #BeFree and the One Economy Foundation,” Frieda Stefanus, National Coordinator of the One Economy Foundation, said.
Stefanus added that at the heart of the #BeFree Movement is the belief that young people are the catalysts for socio-economic transformation in their communities.
“Our holistic approach focuses on programmes that provide mental health support, economic empowerment, education, skills development, and reproductive health. The #BeFree Movement does not promote or support any form of sexual immorality or inappropriate sexual content for young children. Our programmes focus on age-appropriate, evidence-based life skills education that empowers youth to make informed decisions about their health, education, and future career aspirations. Neither the One Economy Foundation nor #BeFree receives direct or indirect funding from the government of the United States of America (or any of its agencies) for any of our programmes. Furthermore, we are not affiliated with the US-funded DREAMS Project. Therefore, the demand in the petition by Mr Nakathingo that the Ministry of Education remove #BeFree/Dreams subjects is absurd,” Stefanus said.
She added that the One Economy Foundation goes to great lengths to ensure transparency around all our programmes and funding – to the extent that they publish the names of our donors on a regular basis in local newspapers and that any programme material they use is publicly available.
“Given the emotive nature of the topic of homosexuality during the national election cycle, we are convinced that these malicious allegations have been made with the sole intent to damage our good reputation and to delegitimise our advocacy in the eyes of the members of the public and those we serve; and we assume the “sexual immorality” link is derived from our programmes that focus on addressing the high rates of Gender Violence, HIV, STI, and unintended pregnancy in adolescents,” Stefanus said.
