A 12-year-old boy who never saw the inside of a classroom was finally enrolled at the Oniipa Primary School in the Oshikoto region to start Grade One.

Johannes Risto has been taking care of one of their family friends’ elderly woman, where he was raised at Onamungundo village in the Oshikoto region.

According to Good Samaritan Jesaya Nambundunga, who spotted him and took him to school, Risto never attended school.

“He was looking after the elderly woman who is 90-something years old, where he was being raised. Cooking and bathing her was his daily work,” he narrated.

Last month, he was brought back to his grandmother’s house at Oniipa in Oshikoto. 

“One day when I passed by their house, I saw a young boy with wounds all over his head, with a terrible smell that you could not stand,” he added.

Nambundunga said when he heard the whole story from one of the family members, he could not let the situation continue as it was.

‘’I quickly took him to hospital, where he was admitted. But I requested permission to go home with him, where I kept dressing him until he got better,” he noted.

He stated that after he got better, he took the teenager to the Oniipa Primary School and explained everything to the principal.

He was then admitted and is doing well, although he never knew how to touch a pen before.

Risto said he is happy that he goes to school, but he doesn’t have a full uniform yet.

‘’I don’t have a jersey and shoes; I am cold,” he said with a shivering voice.

“Although the issue of school is sorted, Risto is one of 14 grandchildren who depend on the 97-year-old woman’s pension grant,” Nambundunga said.

Out of the 14 are children aged between one month and 15 years, and all stay in one zinc shack. 

The family doesn’t have enough shacks to sleep in, and in their state, they cannot withstand the onslaught of the weather during the rainy season and during winter.

The children are not well-looked-after, and there is just not enough to cater for food and cosmetics for everyone in the household.
“The family members have no beds or mattresses. They do not have enough blankets either. They use two pots, which they put up six times before enough porridge is prepared to feed the 14 of them. The school-going children have no uniforms, neither do they have shoes,” Nambundunga continued.

The children and grandchildren all live with the old woman. 

Most of the children of the nonagenarian left home to look for employment, only to come back a few months later heavily pregnant to give birth again.

“Eight of them do not have birth certificates because their mothers could not locate the fathers. As a result, the children do not have national documents.
Only a few of the grandchildren have birth certificates; the rest have absent or missing fathers. 

They don’t have national documents, so they are unable to benefit from the government’s social grants programme”.

Oniipa councillor Tuuli Nuunyango said he is aware of the situation in that house, and his office has tried its best to assist where it can.

“I visited that house three times last year. I donated maize meal, cooking oil and cans of fish,” he stated.  He said for those children who don’t have documents, it is their mothers who caused all these problems.

“About 49% of people in my constituency don’t have national documents. Some only look for them when they are about to reach 60 years, for pension purposes,” stressed Nuunyango.

- vkaapanda@nepc.com.na