The philosophy and principles of the Living Culture Foundation Namibia are often different to the understanding of development cooperation of other development organizations in Namibia. In general we think quite critical about the "development industry" because not only positive things are done. Indeed development cooperation produces not seldom the opposite of development.
We help where we can, but only in places or communities where our help is desired, where there is a real interest in development and where own work will be brought in. We never ever help through financing only, but through the transfer of ideas, educational opportunities and motivation for self responsible development of projects.
Like many other development aid organisations we also commit ourselves to the principle of “helping people to help themselves”. Unfortunately “helping people to help themselves” has become a very fashionable, rarely scrutinised principle, which is being used as a slogan by nearly all organisations up to the point where the phrase is actually being misused as platitude.
This is the reason why we do not use the term “helping people to help themselves” for advertising, but have clearly incorporated the principle within our project concepts.
Main Projects
We will support a variety of cultural small-scale projects in Namibia. The projects devide into long term projects of the cultural network, promotional projects within the LCFN culture platform and into short term projects as our educational tours.
1. The culture network
The main task of the LCFN is the initiation of a culture network consisting of traditional, authentic cultural projects. These can include Living Museums, cultural sing and dance groups and traditional artists. The Living Museum has the best oportunity to generate sustainable income and to preserve the cultural heritage.
2. The culture platform
The LCFN will support established projects within the culture platform. Through constant cooperation with the tourism industry, educational istitutes etc. the LCFN will ensure the sustainable success of the projects.
3. Educational excursions
With educational excursions the members of the cultural network recieve the possibility to get to know their home country, to promote their projects within Namibia to get important training in essential areas of running a business.
Their Living Museums are:
#. http://exarc.net/venues/living-museum-juhoansi-grashoek-na
#. http://exarc.net/venues/living-museum-mafwe-na
#. http://exarc.net/venues/living-museum-damara-na
#. http://exarc.net/venues/living-hunters-museum-juhoansi-xa-oba-na
#. http://exarc.net/venues/living-museum-mbunza-na
