Friday 12 November 2010
Aya aye cap'n! - Johanna Kwedhi, Namibia's first female trawler captain.
Johanna is Namibia's first female trawler captain. She trained with the Namibian Maritime Fisheries Institute and became skipper after eight years service as an officer and chief mate. Now in command of a crew of 23, she finds that men are not used to a woman at the wheel. Namibia signed up to the Millennium Development Goals that aim to cut poverty by half in 2015. These goals include specific targets for women - on education, reproductive health and equality. Johanna is an example of targets fulfilled -- but back home, how about her friends and relatives?
‘Trawler Girl’, the latest in the ‘Life on the Edge’ film series looks at Namibia’s progress on meeting its MDGs promises to women - through the eyes of the country’s first female trawler captain.
Slight, pretty, sharp-eyed, and determined, Johanna Kwedhi is in charge of a crew of 23 fishermen. Out at sea, she runs the show. But it’s not so long since Johanna was living in a shantytown on the outskirts of the Namibian port city Luderitz, with no running water - a girl from the villages who used to walk 14 kilometres every day to school.
For ‘Trawler Girl’, the programme took Johanna and her 14-month old son Innocent on a 1,500 kilometre trip back home to the north of the country to find out what the prospects for women are here today. Are other girls now seizing the chances Johanna once took to break with tradition and forge their own careers? What’s happening to Namibia’s MDG promises to cut maternal mortality and empower women? And what does this mean for Namibia’s boys?
Trawler Girl was a film made by tve - tve works with partners worldwide to make films which inspire change.
COMMENTARY transcript from the video:
We’re close to Namibia’s Skeleton Coast. We’re at the edge of the Namib Desert, on Africa’s south west coast. A world of drought, danger, shipwreck. But also… fish!
Luderitz Harbour – an old port rebuilt for fishing boats. The industry is one of the pillars of Namibia’s economy. It’s a man’s world. Almost eight out of ten fishery workers are men. Women allowed on these great Atlantic trawlers normally only as visitors - maybe taking a turn at the wheel. Johanna Kwedhi is going aboard the Kanus, one of the fleet’s largest vessels. Except, Johanna is not coming on board as a guest… Johanna is Namibia’s first female trawler skipper.
JOHANNA:
As Captain, I normally work on standby for 24 hours. I wake up at about six o’clock. We are having six hours shifts. At the bridge we are three. Me as the Captain. A Chief Mate and a second mate.
COMM:
Men are not used to a woman at the wheel. Women don’t normally chart the course – literally or metaphorically. Or give orders... however pleasantly. And the crew knows their lives are in her hands.
"tve works with partners worldwide to make films that inspire change"
Plus Tate, includes Newlyn's Orion Gallery in the country's most dynamic art institutions.
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| Newlyn Orion and the Exchange in Penzance have been included in a national arts project called Plus Tate. |
Culture Secretary launches Plus Tate, a major new collaborative arts initiative.
Plus Tate, a major new national initiative for the visual arts involving Tate and 18 of the UK’s most dynamic arts institutions, was launched on 21 October at Tate Modern by Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. Joining together to exchange ideas, knowledge, skills and resources, as well as programmes and collections, the Plus Tate partners, along with and facilitated by Tate, will broaden and deepen engagement in modern and contemporary art across the country.
The full list of partners announced is as follows: Arnolfini, Bristol; BALTIC, Gateshead; Cornerhouse, Manchester; firstsite, Colchester; Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea; Grizedale Arts, Cumbria; The Hepworth Wakefield; Ikon, Birmingham; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge; mima, Middlesbrough; Mostyn, Llandudno; Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange, Penzance; Nottingham Contemporary; The Pier Arts Centre, Orkney; Towner, Eastbourne; Turner Contemporary, Margate; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; and Wysing Arts Centre, Bourn (Cambridge).
The impact of the visual arts on cultural and socio-economic regeneration in the regions has been hugely significant in recent years. Building on the achievements of this sector requires imaginative new models of collaboration and entrepreneurial thinking.
During a pilot phase of the Plus Tate programme in 2009, then known as Tate Connects, several organisations in the network began to set new standards for sector responsibility through a cost-effective and resilient approach to running galleries and arts organisations, exploring together new ways of increasing generated income, setting up staff training and placement schemes, as well as sharing audience research and joint business models. The network has subsequently expanded and now 18 organisations are on board, plus Tate.
Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt said: “In a week where we achieved a good spending settlement for the arts, I am very pleased to be at Tate to launch Plus Tate. It is an outstanding example of initiative, creative thinking and collaboration. The partnership between Tate and these eighteen arts organisations up and down the country will bring huge public benefit, by pooling resources and inspiring people through art.”
Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate said: “The Plus Tate network is central to Tate’s vision. Working in partnership, collaborating closely with leading organisations that have high national and international profiles and strong links to their local communities, means we can support their further development and strengthen their hand by sharing with them Tate’s resources and Collection. At the same time, we can deepen our own experience by tapping into their particular expertise and inventiveness.”
One of the ten founding partners is BALTIC, Gateshead, which opened in 2003. BALTIC’s Director, Godfrey Worsdale, commented: “The Plus Tate partnership has been beneficial in assisting BALTIC to benchmark its plans and practices; fundamentally, the wider collaboration has created a forum in which individual and group issues can be embedded across the sector more quickly.”
Turner Contemporary, Margate, will open in 2011 and its Director, Victoria Pomery, said: “ We see the Plus Tate partnership as a huge support, acting as a platform through which we can share and exchange ideas and information with peer institutions and providing welcome access to Tate’s own expertise, experience and Collection.”
Soon-to-be-renamed St Adrian arrives in Newlyn for skipper Roger Nowell.
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With the St Georges the only white fish landing on Friday's market and the price of fish in a gale strewn country likely to be sky high the skipper and crew were sure to benefit.......
Thursday 11 November 2010
Looks like another tow job - this time its two Breton boats from Guilvinec.
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| Click to animate. |
With both boats travelling at around 2 knots, it looks like the Breton boat Connemara is towing the Guilvinec registered Eridan to Newlyn. The most common reason for a fishing boat getting a tow in poor weather is as a result of the propellor being fouled by the trawl when hauling in heavy seas.
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| Eridan entering Newlyn. |
On the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
LEST WE FORGET
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| More information on those servicemen recorded on the monumnet can be found on the Roll of Honour web site for Newlyn. |
Fire ship Athena brought into Carrick Roads, Falmouth.
Big freezer trawlers like the Athena use block freezers to freeze the fish they catch in box-sized blocks. The frozen blocks are then put in cardboard boxes made up from on the spot. The fire is thought to have started in the store where thousands of the flat-pack cardboard boxes were stored.
Wednesday 10 November 2010
At last, something to rival the Co-op's Tickler cheese.
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