ADN - Alzheimer Dementia Namibia

12 /12/12 I had the priviledged to unchained one of the strongest women I ever met in my 17 years of being the CEO of Alzheimer Dementia Namibia ( ADN ).

The story is wellknown to everyone who knows me and the work of ADN but the next story is unknown to everyone even to me because I forgot it but luckily dotted it down 12 years ago, when I start to travel Northern Namibia to find more Ndjinaa's and try to understand how people in rural Namibia explains Brain diseases.

21 August 2014.

At dinner we met a Herero waiter from Okakarara. He could not believe the photos of a freed Ndjinaa on my phone. He called over the meat chef, Kami — Himba, from a village near Ndjinaa. Kami stared at the screen and did not believe it either.
He kept repeating: “I see the photos, but I don’t believe it. How can Ndjinaa not be in chains? Why doesn’t she walk away? Why isn’t she aggressive, throwing stones?” He asked this while waving his chef’s knife. He gathered the whole staff to look. Then: “What did you do? Did you give her a pill?” I think he meant: did I bewitch her too? All I could say was, we gave her the pill of love. He shook his head. “Love can’t do this. You did something else. I want to know what.”

Tomorrow involves long travel and hours of discussion under trees and in the sun, considering a hypothesis that has emerged repeatedly in our fieldwork: that local attributions of witchcraft may function as a cultural framework for interpreting cognitive decline in older adults, similar to how biomedical models use dementia or Alzheimer’s disease in Western contexts.
If witchcraft serves as the primary explanatory model for memory loss, personality change, and behavioral disinhibition, then community responses will differ markedly from clinical responses. This raises a methodological question for global health discourse: should organizations such as consider convening dialogues in African contexts that engage directly with indigenous explanatory models? A “Bewitching Conference” held in Africa might create space for cross-cultural comparison between biomedical and traditional frameworks, rather than defaulting to the importation of Western diagnostic categories alone.

BERRIE HOLTZHAUSEN

This all leads to 3 questions I am asking myself after 12 years doing awareness and education in rural Namibia:

1. Explanatory models: What local terms or stories did people use today to explain memory loss or behavior change? How do those terms map onto, or differ from, “dementia” or “Alzheimer’s” as I understand them?
2. Social response: How did the community react to the person showing cognitive decline — with fear, care, exclusion, ritual? What does that response reveal about how “witchcraft” functions as more than just belief?
3. My role/bias: What assumptions did I bring into today’s conversations? Where did I feel tension between biomedical language and local language, and what did I learn from sitting in that tension?

Words create Worlds. At Alzheimers Dementia Namibia (ADN) we are constantly challenging en rethinking words and concepts that stigmatize and discriminate against Brain Health and specific Dementia as a permanent and progressive degeneration of the brain 🧠

Dementia Is More Than a Disease in Namibia

When I decided to found Alzheimer Dementia Namibia in 2009, I realized how little I knew about dementia and about people living with it in Namibia. At the time, a diagnosis was rare, medical knowledge was limited even among professionals, and there was no reliable data.

I also came to understand how important it is to know the history of Namibia’s indigenous people and the hardships their ancestors endured because of colonization by my own ancestors. These truths were never taught to us — the descendants of the colonial settlers — in school.

It began with what was called the Berlin Conference.
Berlin Conference: The Scramble for Africa
November 15, 1884 – February 26, 1885
Hosted by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, it brought together leaders from 13 European nations and the United States to divide Africa among colonial powers.

In the early 20th century, colonization in Namibia led to atrocities. The Herero, Damara, and Nama people suffered what is now widely recognized as the first genocide of the 20th century. Germany officially acknowledged it as genocide in 2021, and on May 28, 2025, Namibia held its first official national commemoration as part of the path to reconciliation.

But at ADN, I also witnessed the power of love between supporters and carers — 100% of whom come from indigenous communities — and people living with dementia, who were initially 100% from the white community.

ADN began with aggressive awareness and education across all sectors of society and among all Namibians. By the second year, people from indigenous groups had already joined our dementia family as both supporters and people needing care.

Five years ago, I wrote a poem to express what ADN is working to achieve: not only support and care, but also reconciliation. We cannot change the past, but we can create a new future.

Dementia is more than a disease/disability

I am an offspring of the Herero people
I am also a supporter of vulnerable people
I am an offspring of white colonial masters
I am also targeted by Dementia's disasters

Our hands joined together in love
Someone is smiling from above
a Black hand and a White hand
peace and love; Symbols of both hands

My hand will never be used to hurt you
only to touch, guide, and care for you.
My hand unchained her feet
a Grandmother in need.

Dementia the "killer" and the Reconciler
Joint our hands; before death; reconciled.

Berrie

❤️

Today we had the privilege of meeting the youngest Member of Parliament, Hon. Fenny Tutjavi 🌸

At ProSmile, we love celebrating individuals who carry themselves with confidence and inspire others to do the same because a confident smile can open so many doors 🤍

Ons het reggekom, baie dankie!

***

We are looking for a hairdresser who will be willing to come to us every 6 weeks or so, for an hour or two to cut our family's hair. Wikus has unfortunately retired. Thanks!

Thank you, Angel (AVR) for our extended family of 4 new babies! We will have to open a crèche soon 😍

Great to be part of this wonderful initiative!

#adn #zorgprofessionals #dementie #ouderenzorg | Circular Society Netherlands Kick-off 🥳 Op maandagmiddag hebben we de kick-off gehad van de eerste 12 Namibische verpleegkundigen. Zij zijn gestart aan een training van 10 maanden waarin zij: - de Nederlandse taal leren; - 4 maanden intern getraind worden in een dementiecentrum; - cultuur sensitieve taaltraining krijgen; - d...

For many years now I have said it on many occasions even on international platforms where I was a speaker.

I will keep on saying this till what sounds impossible becomes possible and compulsory.

Commemorate Cassinga Day, Brain Health/Dementia and the Bible

Today [4 May] we commemorate CASSINGA DAY in Namibia. A day on which 600 Namibians were brutally killed by my people, in a war that was justified on the basis of Bible texts. A war that was the result of the creation of apartheid, which was again justified by BIBLE texts as the will of GOD, justified from a book that is the WORD OF GOD.

My problem lies, therefore, at the level of a text that MUST be removed and MUST be seen as HATE SPEECH because it is, and has been, responsible for atrocities against women in particular over centuries.

My issue is not with the translation, but with the theology behind understanding the Bible as THE WORD OF GOD. As a minister, I always taught my congregations that the Bible must be handled carefully in the context of its ORIGIN and EXISTENCE. These are not words from GOD, but words about God by people in specific contexts. We must therefore be cautious about making declarations like: 'This is what God says, and that’s final… because it’s in the Bible.'

I sketch the above background for the simple reason that there are still BIBLE texts being presented as God’s WORD, as in apartheid, to justify ourselves by saying that it is written as it is written, like Exodus 22:18.

Please understand me clearly. I do not reject the belief in witchcraft, but I do reject and fight against the 'harmful practices of witchcraft belief' that encourage people to label women,men and children as witches and thereby endanger their lives, destroy their families, and create poverty. In the same way, I do not reject the Bible, but I do reject texts that encourage people to commit murder or encourage 'harmful practices'

The Dutch Reformed Church took decades to admit that the Bible passages we so comfortably used to justify apartheid and its atrocities were sinful and wrong.

My question to the Christian church is therefore: How many decades will it take to become aware of how much damage a text like EXODUS 22:18 has caused and continues to cause in Sub-Saharan Africa, before we stand up and apologise for our silence, and correct it, and if necessary, even remove it… why not?

I was invited to the Pan African Parliament [PAP] in South Africa for the launch of a document entitled:
'Guidelines for parliamentarians:
Towards eliminating harmful practices and other human rights violations.'

In the chapter on the definition of the term 'witchcraft', the origin of witchcraft belief in Africa and its consequences are historically described as follows: '…many of which have evolved over time as a consequence of modernization and influences from Christianity, Islam, other religions…' It also makes several 'recommendations' through which the Christian faith [all religions] can play an indispensable role.

My organisation [Alzheimer Dementia Namibia] and I are happy to work with any group or religion to eradicate human rights violations against so-called witches in Sub Saharan Africa.

Berrie Holtzhausen