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Vaalgras
Vaalgras () is a village in Namibia's ǁKaras Region. Located northeast of Keetmanshoop, the village is also home of the ''Vaalgras Traditional Authority''. It is home to a community of the Oorlam people, a group descends from the Herero people, OvaHerero, Nama people, Nama and other groups.Vaalgras community patches up wounds
''The Namibian'', 22 March 2006


Notable residents

* Emil Appolus * Eric Biwa * Willem Konjore (1945–2021), government minister


References

Populated places in the ǁKaras Region Oorlam people {{Namibia-geo-stub ...
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Emil Appolus
Emil Appolus (10 March 1935, in Vaalgras, ǁKaras Region - 28 May 2005, in Keetmanshoop) was a Namibian politician and businessperson. Living in Cape Town, Appolus was part of early discussions on Namibian independence. In 1957, Appolus became a founding member of the Ovamboland People's Congress, the forerunner to the current ruling party, SWAPO. When the OPC merged to create SWANU, Sam Nujoma and Fanuel Kozonguizi were two of the five members of the executive committee. He authored the first Black newspaper in Namibia, ''The South West News'' (Afrikaans: ''Die Suidwes Nuus''). ''The South West News'' was later banned for nationalistic content. After involvement in the 1960-65 Congo Crisis, Appolus ended up in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where he was deported to Pretoria, South Africa for illegally leaving the country. After receiving bail, Appolus fled to Bechuanaland (now Botswana) en route to Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Appolus was the first SWAPO representati ...
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Willem Konjore
Reverend Willem Konjore (30 July 1945—11 June 2021) was a Namibian politician. He was a member and a deputy speaker of the National Assembly of Namibia, and served in cabinet from 2005 to 2010. Early life and education Konjore was born on 30 July 1945 in Kais, a small settlement in what today is the ǁKaras Region. He trained as a teacher from 1966 to 1967 at St Joseph's Teacher Training Centre in Döbra and studied theology in the Diocese of Keetmanshoop and Mariental from 1976 to 1979. From 1968 to 1990 he worked at several schools, first as teacher in Tses in southern Namibia and later as principal and manager in Khorixas. Political career A member of SWAPO, Konjore was a member of the National Assembly of Namibia beginning with the Constituent Assembly in 1989 and ending following the election of the 5th National Assembly in 2010. He served as deputy speaker of this body from 2000 to 2005. He was appointed Minister of Environment and Tourism in 2005, and was m ...
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Eric Biwa
Eric Biwa (born 8 May 1953 in Vaalgras, ǁKaras Region) is a former Namibian politician with the Patriotic Unity Movement (PUM), a party which was a member of the United Democratic Front (UDF). Pre-independence A former combatant in the Namibian War of Independence with SWAPO's armed wing, Biwa was one of many alleged spies detained near Lubango, Angola in the 1980s. Biwa founded the PUM in July 1989 ahead of the 1989 elections and immediately led the party into the UDF alliance. Biwa was a member of the National Assembly of Namibia from its founding as the Constituent Assembly A constituent assembly (also known as a constitutional convention, constitutional congress, or constitutional assembly) is a body assembled for the purpose of drafting or revising a constitution. Members of a constituent assembly may be elected b ... prior to independence in 1989 until his resignation in 2003. He was replaced by Gustaphine Tjombe.
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Namibia
Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the northeast, approximating a quadripoint, Zimbabwe lies less than 200 metres (660 feet) away along the Zambezi, Zambezi River near Kazungula, Zambia. Namibia's capital and largest city is Windhoek. Namibia is the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, and has been inhabited since prehistoric times by the Khoekhoe, Khoi, San people, San, Damara people, Damara and Nama people. Around the 14th century, immigration, immigrating Bantu peoples arrived as part of the Bantu expansion. From 1600 the Ovambo people#History, Ovambo formed kingdoms, such as Ondonga and Oukwanyama. In 1884, the German Empire established rule over most of the territory, forming a colony known as German South West Africa. Between 1904 and 1908, German troops waged a punitive ...
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ǁKaras Region
The ǁKharas Region (pronounced , with a lateral click, former name Karas Region, without the click) is the southernmost, largest, and least densely populated of the 14 regions of Namibia; its capital is Keetmanshoop. The name assigned to the region reflects the prominence of the Karas mountain range in its southern part. The ǁKharas region contains the municipality of Keetmanshoop, the towns Karasburg, Lüderitz and Oranjemund, and the self-governed villages Aroab, Berseba, Bethanie, Koës and Tses. ǁKharas' western border is the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. Its location in Namibia's south means that it shares a long border in the south and east with the Northern Cape Province of South Africa. Domestically, it borders only the Hardap Region, to the north. Politics As of 2020, ǁKharas had 56,352 registered voters. The name of this region was ''Karas Region'' (without the alveolar lateral click of the Khoekhoegowab language) since Namibian independence in 1990. I ...
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Keetmanshoop
Keetmanshoop is a town in the ǁKaras Region of southern Namibia. It is named after , a German Empire, German industrialist and benefactor of the city. Keetmanshoop had a population of 27,862 people in 2023. History Before the colonial era, the settlement was known as ''ǂNuǂgoaes'' or ''Swartmodder'', both meaning "Black Marsh" and indicating the presence of a spring in the area. The first white settler, Guilliam Visagie, arrived here in 1785. When in February 1850 the Kharoǃoan clan (Keetmanshoop Nama) split from the Red Nation (Namibia), Red Nation, the main subtribe of the Nama people, they settled permanently in the area. In 1860 the Rhenish Missionary Society founded a mission there to christianise the local Nama people. The first missionary, Johann Georg Schröder, arrived in Keetmanshoop on April 14, 1866, which is now marked as the founding date of Keetmanshoop. The mission station was named after the German trader and director of the Rhenish Missionary Society, , w ...
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The Namibian
''The Namibian'' is the largest daily newspaper in Namibia. It is published in English and Oshiwambo. History The newspaper was established in 1985 by journalist Gwen Lister as a weekly newspaper reliant on support of donors, which aimed to promote Namibian independence from South Africa. Its first edition appeared on 30 August of that year with a print run of 10,000. ''The Namibian'' became a daily newspaper on 1 April 1989. It is owned by the private trust Free Press of Namibia, managed by its founding editor. On the 15th anniversary of its foundation, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan praised the newspaper: "''The Namibian'' worked courageously in difficult and often dangerous conditions. Since then, it has contributed immeasurably to press freedom and nation-building in Namibia. Throughout, it has maintained its integrity and independent stance." Relations to government Prior to Namibian independence The newspaper exposed human rights violations by South Af ...
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Oorlam People
The Oorlam or Orlam people (also known as Orlaam, Oorlammers, Oerlams, or Orlamse Hottentots) are a subtribe of the Nama people, largely assimilated after their migration from the Cape Colony (today, part of South Africa) to Namaqualand and Damaraland (now in Namibia). Oorlam clans were originally formed from mixed-race descendants of indigenous Khoikhoi, Europeans and slaves from Mozambique, Madagascar, India and Indonesia. Similar to the other Afrikaans-speaking group at the time, the Trekboers, Oorlam originally populated the frontiers of the infant Cape Colony, later living as semi-nomadic commandos of mounted gunmen. Also, like the Boers, they migrated inland from the Cape, and established several states in what are now South Africa and Namibia. The Oorlam migration in South Africa also produced the related Griqua people. History Beginning in the late 18th century, Oorlam communities migrated from the Cape Colony north to Namaqualand. They settled places earlier oc ...
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Herero People
The Herero () are a Bantu people, Bantu ethnic group inhabiting parts of Southern Africa. 178,987 Namibians identified as Ovaherero in the 2023 census. They speak Otjiherero, a Bantu language. Though the Herero primarily reside in Namibia, there are also significant populations in Botswana and Angola, and a small number in South Africa. The Hereros in Botswana and South Africa are there because of displacement during the Herero and Nama genocide, 1904–1908 genocide committed by the German colonial empire, German Empire. Overview Unlike most Bantu, who are primarily subsistence agriculture, subsistence farmers,Immaculate N. Kizza, ''The Oral Tradition of the Baganda of Uganda: A Study and Anthology of Legends, Myths, Epigrams and Folktales'' p. 21: "The Bantu were, and still are, primarily subsistence farmers who would settle in areas, clear land, organize themselves in larger units basically for protective purposes, and start permanent settlements." the Herero are traditionall ...
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Nama People
Nama (in older sources also called Namaqua) are an African ethnic group of South Africa, Namibia and Botswana. They traditionally speak the Khoekhoe language, Nama language of the Khoe languages, Khoe-Kwadi language family, although many Nama also speak Afrikaans. The Nama People (or Nama-Khoe people) are the largest group of the Khoekhoe people, many of whom have disappeared as a group. Many of the Nama clans live in Central Namibia and the other smaller groups live in Namaqualand, which today straddles the Namibian border with South Africa. History The Khoisan peoples of South Africa and southern Namibia maintained a nomadic life since time immemorial. The Khoekhoe were pastoralists and the San people lived as hunter-gatherers. The Nama are a Khoekhoe group. They originally inhabited the Orange River in southern Namibia and northern South Africa. The early colonialists referred to them as ''Hottentots''. Their alternative historical name, "Namaqua", stems from the addition o ...
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Populated Places In The ǁKaras Region
Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and plants, and has specific uses within such fields as ecology and genetics. Etymology The word ''population'' is derived from the Late Latin ''populatio'' (a people, a multitude), which itself is derived from the Latin word ''populus'' (a people). Use of the term Social sciences In sociology and population geography, population refers to a group of human beings with some predefined feature in common, such as location, race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion. Ecology In ecology, a population is a group of organisms of the same species which inhabit the same geographical area and are capable of interbreeding. The area of a sexual population is the area where interbreeding is possible between any opposite-sex pair within the area ...
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