Pinehas Nakaziko
Windhoek-This year Namibia will join the rest of the world for the first time in commemorating World Audio-visual Heritage Day today at the National Independence Memorial Museum (NIMM).
The world celebrates the day every year on October 27. Various audiovisual materials by different organisations are on exhibit. The event is organised by the Namibia Audio Visual Audio (NAVA), celebrated under the theme “Discover, remember and share”.
The adoption in 1980 of the Recommendation for the for the Safeguarding and Preservation of Moving Images by the 21st General Conference of the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) prompted the commemoration.
The day provides an occasion to raise general awareness of the need to take urgent measures, and to acknowledge the importance of audio-visual documents.
NAVA director Baby Doeseb says some of the objectives of the commemoration in Namibia are to inform and make the public aware of the importance of audio-visual materials.
“We hope to attract a large number of the public, so that they can understand the importance of perceiving audio visual heritage materials,” Doeseb says.
They want to see how they can make audiovisual material accessible to Namibian people. Archives in Namibia are held at institutions such as National Archive of Namibia (NAN), University of Namibia (Unam), Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), Namibia Broadcasting Corporation (NBC), Ministry of Information Communication and Technology (MICT), Museums Association of Namibia (MAN) and the Scientific Society of Namibia.
The event starts at nine o’clock in the morning (09h00) until four o’clock in the afternoon (16h00).