English Digital research - Assignment 2

Author: Modestu Ipangelwa

The literary output of Namibian youths 

The level of literacy among Namibian Youths and their activeness in Literatures.

The power of the spoken word also has a special place in Namibian mythology and culture, so there's plenty of good Namibian authors out there, both contemporary and few historical. It is very difficult to find out how many novels, poetry, plays, youth's literature, anthologies and un-translated works are in Namibia today. It is also good to find out to which culture, tradition, country and group of people does these forms of literatures belongs. Many years ago, people had failed to transfer their knowledge and wisdom to generations thereafter because in some societies most people had ignored their talents, possibly because they were not introduced to various forms of literatures that could enabled them to open their minds fully, thus unlocking their full potential of what they were capable of doing.

National Literacy Programme

Country Profile: Namibia

Population	2.558 million (2017)
Poverty (population living on less than US$1 per day)	31.9% (2007–2017)
Official languages	English (Recognised Regional Languages: German, Afrikaans, Oshiwambo)
Total expenditure on education as % of GNP	8.4% (2010)
Access to primary education – total net intake rate (NIR)	57%
Youth literacy rate (15-24 years)	Total: 87.1% (2017) Male: 83.2% Female: 90.6%
Most of Namibian youths are literate and they have a basic introduction to	The involvement in literary practice does not mean it can always results in output.  The output should be seen through practice.
what is literature in school.

Namibia is one of the south-western countries of Africa with 2,558,223 population according to 2017-Wordometers statistics. The statistics submitted by UNICEF in 2012, clearly indicated that 86.9 percentages of youths in Namibia are literate of which 83.2% are men and 90.6% are female between the ages of 15-24. But the question is, since such percentages of youths are literate, are they active in literatures? Before proceeding it is good to know what it means by literary output in general and in a wider range before tackling it at specific location and at specific point of view.

What is literary output?

The word literary itself, carries an idea of something knowledgeable to literatures. So, literary is concerning the writing, study, or content of literature, especially of the kind valued for quality of form. This form can include written, poetic, artistic and dramatic forms which is basically literature. The Oxford University Press online gives the relationship between literatures and literary-output through literary practice. Literary practice is ‘part of a family of social practices, including that of fictive story-telling, which can be characterized through their constitutive concepts and conventions’. The concept of literature itself as well as the literary stance can be characterized and explained only with reference to this framework. The literary stance is an attitude made possible by defining concepts and conventions of literary practice in the approach to a text. Only by using these concepts and conventions can the reader identify the features of a literary work construed as a literary work within the practice. In order for literary output to come about, literary practice on literatures forms, comes first. From this point of view, we can observe, analyse and criticize the Namibian youths if they are involved in literary output through practice of literatures. The same, we can also find out why they are not involved in its practices by finding out if there is no output.

In what type of literatures does Namibian Youths mostly involved?

In our Namibian society, every culture has its unique ways of doing things. It is very hard to find a nation without a tradition in Namibia. In Ovamboland for instance, which is in the northern part of Namibia, many youths are involved in traditional literatures that is spread from faded generations and it is passed on to generation after generation. This is the same with other cultures across the country. Namibian youths, especially those in villages, they spends nights circling fires while telling stories, basically mysterious stories and legends. They are more actively involved in artistic singings which takes place during joyfully occasions. Again, in all schools in Namibia, there is a formal subject in the curriculum called Art which is compulsory from lower grades. Youths enjoys this subject because they learns to be artistic, enabling them to play dramas, enhancing their craft’s skills and teaches them how to tell stories and singing. From this observation, most of youths becomes passionate with oral and dramatic literatures. This was one of the reason to have Namibian college of Art in the capital city. We never really give our consideration that most of art-related works are parts or forms of literatures. Deducing from owns experiences in Namibia, literary output cannot only come about as a results of written practices but can also result through practices of other forms of literatures.

An outstanding example of a Namibian youth at the time that passionately involved in literary output.

Approaching it from linguistics points of view, literary output in Namibia can be associated with literary works or other formal writing, having a marked style intended to create a particular emotional effect. Sadly, only few percentages of youths in Namibia that are involved in written literature. According to Woyingi Blog (2010), there he highlighted one of the outstanding example of a Namibian youth at the time. Neshani Andreas who was born in 1964 started with her manuscript in 1988 at the age of 24 years old. Even though it took her many years for her literary practices to be published, she had a passion about her literary output to all Namibian societies. Through the practice of literatures at school as a teacher, she became passionately involved in literatures from very little age and she finally set a fine example to all Namibian youth when she presented her works to Jane Katjavivi in 1999 to be published. Currently her literary output, her novel is part of Zimbabwean’s literature curriculum after Jane Katjavivi presented it to African literatures.

       The picture of Neshani Andreas                                The Namibian map

Even in Namibia, literary output are worthy celebration because it makes youths wants to be passionate after seeing the results of their works. Through literature, youths seeks independence and idealism in society. Andreas Neshani felt liberated after accomplishing, poured out her heart and made known to the world what literary output or the results of literature can do to Namibian society. Currently, it is very hard to predict if those involved in literary practice are really youths or just those who had passed their broom of youth. By my surprise I was intrigued to see Poet-soup, a web publication of every poets on the internet. Namibian youths plus those who had left their youths publishes their poetry works daily. Some of these youths are like Misinga, Seth Yuhi, Kalunduka Marco and Ndopu Edward. Their works is so inspiring especially seeing their activeness to the contribution of literary output.

The involvement of Non-Governmental Organisations to help youths.

According to Namibian youths, they are active in some areas of literatures but not in all. The National Youths Council of Namibia (NYC), purposed the youths to discuss on how to go about, how to develop the country and how government was going to engage the disenfranchised and diverse youth on matters that concern them. Undoubtedly, literatures also concerns youths and it must be part of this discussion. Through thoroughly observation, some areas of youths are ignored and this is what makes youths not to be whole-heartedly involved in literary works. There are various factors that made most of youths in Namibia to give up on their creativity and stopped them from being innovative with works of literatures due to misconception of how people in general view literatures.

Namibian Society need to appreciate and acknowledge someone's talent.

There are some outlined points that need to be stressed because they blocked the road for youths to prosper in literatures according to what people stated during my open ended questions.

·        Namibians does not appreciate one’s talents. There were comparisons between Namibians, Africans and the whole-world. In Namibia, one can be especially talented but is hardly recognised, acknowledged and supported to carry on with what he/she naturally capable of doing. We do not have common and comfortable platforms where youths can reveal their zeal in literatures, such as performing dramas, oral poetry and for performances that can results in good output of literary works. For example, in Nigeria, literature is parts of what made up most of Nigerians. Youths, publishes they work and becomes prosperous in society too. While outside the continent, such as in Europe and in Americas, people there supports youths and they value them and their hard-working to come up with successfully literary output and benefit others.

·        Youths are not aware of streams of digital humanity. Almost 95% of Namibian’s youths, except those enrolled in high-educational institutions, does not know that they can do literary works digitally and electronically. It is very rare to find a youth without a phone and nowadays, they possessed the advanced smart-phones that can enable them to explore streams of digital world. It is easier than ever before to learn about literatures on many pages on internet. Avoiding the risk of losing the most output of Namibian youth’s literary works, writing and publishing online is made possible. Of course, based on some arguments of youths in Namibian society, we are nation in a developing country and the level of economy is not that well which can be a burden to some to have a connection with internet. Theoretical, this is true but practicality not because they all WhatsApp, Facebooking and they are involved in different kinds of social-networks. You could really see that most of Namibian youths does not have a passion with literatures.

·        The cost involved in order to become an active literary output person. “We cannot really say that Namibian Youths are not active in literatures because they are only inactive in output”. This is a report made by an old lady. According to me, she was kind of contradicting herself but when I meditated upon it, she actually made a point. Deducing from her statement, all youth or most of youths in Namibia are involved in literatures in one way or the other. Some writes, some speaks, doing dramas, and involved in artistic forms of poetry but there is no output. There is an expectation to the society of something made up which in this case, a literary output. Namibian Youths does not know that even perhaps, there is nothing in form of monetary assistance from someone’s own pocket, there are people and companies that can help youths to publish or proclaim their creativity in literatures to the whole world or to Namibian society.

From long ago, mankind’s way of life was at one point disturbed and as result, generations comes and go. Being a youth is such a great privilege because this is a stage that someone is having more energy to accomplish a lot that can be of a great benefit to an upcoming generations. Even Namibian youths can be as pillars and mediators for holding generations through the output of literary works. From the research, we have seen that Namibian are neglecting youths from being actively involved in literary output through literary practice of literary works. It is as nothing when doing literary works but there is no result of it.

Some practical steps that Namibian need to follow in order to help youths.

In order for Namibian people to understand the real value of humanity is when we give our shoulders to support youths to relieve the burden and lighten it. We can do that in numbers of ways as a society in general and in togetherness.

-         We should not wait for ageing community or in the grey-headedness for us to recognise of what we are capable of contributing to literatures as a nation.

-         We should start to recognise youths’ talents and acknowledge them just like other countries in Africa and in the rest of the world.

-         We should incorporate the strict rules of literatures in early educational-curriculum, compulsory from lower grades in order to dig out the appreciation of literary work from children before reaching the youth’s stage.

-         We should create awareness in Namibian youths, informing them of what to do in order to for their works to results in an output that can benefit the whole society.

-         We should create more affordable platforms, more or less like College of Art in Windhoek. These platform should help youths to enhance their inborn talents, help them to be actively involved in literary output.

    Summing up the results of the research, only few percentages of Namibian youths are involved in literatures due to the facts that they are discouraged by the status of the country's economical level, lack of motivational effects from people and the mentality that being involved in literary practices means less money. Let's all of us be determined to create awareness that all practices of literary works results in literary output and falsify all possible myths that might exist regarding literary works in Namibian society.





Youths are the pillars, supporting the upcoming generations with works of literatures as a result of its practices.