Press Release

Launch of PEPFAR Funded Mural at Dawid Bezuidenhout High School

November 15, 2007

The American Cultural Centre invites the media to attend the launch of a U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) funded mural at 11h00 at the Dawid Bezuidenhout High School on Friday, November 16, 2007.    

Mr. Dennis Fredericks, principal of Dawid Bezuidenhout High School; Mr. Dennis Weeks, US PEPFAR Coordinator for Namibia; Mr. Fillipus Sheehama, lecturer at the John Muafangejo Art Center; and two learners will make remarks.

The mural was one of three murals painted at schools in Windhoek and Okahandja in an HIV/AIDS Awareness Mural Painting Project implemented by the John Muafangejo Art Center and funded by a PEPFAR grant from the Public Affairs Office of the US Embassy.

Murals were painted at Dawid Bezuidenhout High School in Khomasdal, Mandume Primary School in Katutura, and Aurora Primary School in Okahandja.  The project’s vision was to create HIV/AIDS awareness; allow learners and artists to express their feelings about HIV/AIDS; and demonstrate the value of visual art in the depiction of cultural and historical heritage, and social issues. 

The murals have caught the imagination of Namibians and Americans alike.  The Officer of the Global AIDS Coordinator, at the Department of State in Washington, DC, will be featuring these images in its online art gallery - www.PEPFAR.gov - for World AIDS Day.

A launch will be held at 11h00 at the Mandume Primary School on Friday, November 30, 2007.  Program details to follow.  Funding for the murals amounted to US$10,000.

For further information, please contact Public Affairs Officer, Ray Castillo, at 0811280816, or Information Assistant, Roger Lyners, at 229801 [ext. 226].