OTJIWARONGO – Minister of Information and Communication Technology, Stanley Simataa has called on religious organisations in Namibia to join hands with government in its battle against all the social evils that have engulfed many communities across the country.
Simataa made these remarks during the launch of the Seventh Day Adventist Church (SDA) community radio in Otjiwarongo on Saturday. According to Simataa, the launch of this radio station will add value to the country’s nationhood and national pride interventions.
“Unabated violence against women and children, escalating incidents of intolerance in our communities, the creeping disrespect for human lives, all point to a morally conflicted society that is yearning for redemption!
“Religious and community leaders and institutions, must join government in its nationhood crusade to rehabilitate our society’s degraded moral values,” said Simataa. He also pointed out that government has been working tirelessly to encourage the nation to capitalise on the nationwide roll-out of ICT infrastructure in order to ensure access to information to all Namibians.
He says the launch of the Adventist Radio Namibia (ARN) is a great response to this call.
He further commended the SDA church for this response and called on other religious organisations to emulate this gesture by the church.
“I am extremely pleased, to see the SDA church having responded positively to the government’s call – of course not only in the area of access to information but also in the critical area of expanding access to education where the SDA church was once the pioneers,” stated the minister.
The SDA church was one those to introduce schools in the country particularly in the Zambezi Region where the first Adventist school was established at Ikaba in the far eastern plain of the region in Kabbe South Constituency.
Twelve more schools were established in the region but by 1943, all of them had closed down.
In recent years, the church has been slowly returning to its glory days and an Adventist Primary School opened in the Zambezi Region in 2015. The church also owns a humanitarian organisation known as Adra, which has been assisting vulnerable communities across the country.
Apart from the Otjiwarongo radio station, the SDA has also established radio stations in Windhoek, Ketmanshoop, Gobabis and Rundu, and they revealed during the launch that they plan to establish more radio stations across the country.