By Frederick Philander
REHOBOTH
After 11 years of loyally and regularly serving the Rehoboth arts fraternity and the community at large, the Rehoboth School of Arts still forges ahead with little or no assistance in its creative mission.
“We are only assisted with staff salaries, water and power by the College of the Arts, otherwise we do things independently here at the arts centre, which this year boasts of more than 200 art students. Among them are two keen European students attending guitar lessons,” said the founder of the centre, artist Andrew van Wyk. He and his wife, Charmaine, have been running the art school for the past 11 years.
“Presently, the part-time staff is very unhappy about the contract with the National Arts Extension Programme. The contract emphatically states that we are appointed on an annual basis, but we only receive salaries for 10 months of the year. This is something we cannot understand nor accept. We will continue to agitate about this injustice,” said a determined Van Wyk, on behalf of his staff of four tutors. He is expecting a much-needed consignment of musical instruments as a donation from the German Embassy by next week.
“We are really struggling in the music section due to a dire lack of keyboards and a properly equipped piano. There is a huge demand from students to master these two instruments, in particular. The donation of N$30??????’??