2015-04-27 13:29:00

Radio Ecclesia Namibia to re-open after review


Archbishop Liborius Nashenda of Windhoek has told Radio Vatican’s English Service for Africa staffer, John Baptist Tumusiime, that Namibia’s only Catholic radio station, Radio Ecclesia, closed down by the Church, could reopen after the Bishops’ Conference finalises review of issues that led to its shut down. The Church still has the frequency.

“It has not died completely, we still intend to revive it. Presently, we have a priest who is studying social communications here in Rome with the view of trying to revive Radio Ecclesia Namibia,” Archbishop Nashenda said, as he tried to be cautious and optimistic at the same time.  The Archbishop was speaking on the sidelines of an ad limina visit to the Holy See by the Bishops of Namibia and Lesotho at the weekend.

Radio Ecclesia Namibia was granted a community radio broadcast licence in 1999 by the Namibian Government. Unfortunately, it found itself located in an area where it faced enormous challenges with regard to coverage for its intended listeners.  The acquisition of a huge antenna to reach the entire capital city of Windhoek and beyond did not improve matters.

“We tried our best but for technical and for financial reasons we could not continue. We discovered that the coverage in Windhoek itself was not good.  We felt we could not have the station broadcasting only to a very small part of the city when our original vision was for a station that was to have national coverage,” Archbishop Nashenda said.

The Archbishop said that the Bishops’ Conference is keen to have a radio station that the Church in Namibia would use as an agent for evangelization.  “We are trying to find resources –both financial and technical to get a nationwide Catholic radio station going. We want the radio to bring the faith to the people and for it to be a means of making the Catholic Church present among the people of Namibia,” he said.

Catholics in Namibia account for 22% of a national population of only 2.2 million inhabitants. The Evangelical Lutheran Church is the largest Church with 48% of the population professing membership.

In contrast to the national population, the geographical coverage of the country is 825,615 square km. Namibia is said to be the world's thirty-fourth largest country, after Venezuela.  The presence of the arid Namib desert, however, makes it one of the least densely populated countries in the world.

(Fr. Paul Samasumo)

e-mail: engafrica@vatiradio.va

 








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