| The German Service gains 407 Kilograms!
 On 26 April 2005 the German Ambassador to Namibia, Dr Wolfgang Massing handed over four used professional tape recorders M15 Mono, 70 Audio tapes, 240 rolls of leader tapes, 400 tape hubs and 214 rolls of splicing tapes to the German Service of the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation.
These items were a donation from the public broadcaster Deutsche Welle, Bonn in Germany. They were brought to Namibia at no cost to the NBC with the kind assistance of the German Embassy in Namibia. The shipment had a total weight of 407 kilograms.
 The German Service has a long-standing relationship with the public broadcaster in Germany. The most recent example of this beneficial cooperation is the two-week training course, which the Deutsche Welle offered in November 2004 to a group of producers of the German Service. The course was on Presentation skills and Reporting on Current Affairs. The Deutsche Welle presented the course free of charge. Two trainers were sent to Namibia for the purpose of this course. One them was the Deputy-Director of the Deutsche Welle Academy Mr. Frank Lemke who was instrumental in arranging for the machines to be brought to Namibia.
A special word of thanks goes to Ms. Sandra Petersmann of the Deutsche Welle who visited Namibia beginning of November 2004. Ms. Petersmann used to be stationed in Afghanistan as correspondent for the Deutsche Welle. During her brief stay in Namibia she took a tour through the Radio building. This is when she noticed that there is an urgent need for equipment and upon her return to Germany she organized for the four ATR machines to be donated to the German Service.
 Two of the donated machines will be installed in the offices of the German Service. The other two will be kept by Radio Studio Workshop for spare parts and in case of a breakdown. The remaining material will be made available to all language services.
There is no doubt that the new machines will relieve the pressure on the current equipment used by the service. At this point in time there is a lot of congestion when it comes to ATR-machines. Every staff member is assigned only a limited time during which he/she can use the ATR machines. With the donated machines the access time can be effectively doubled, easing the work pressure and improving quality control. Currently the ATR machines in the actuality office of the service are used almost continuously from 06:30 to 21:00.
 This donation may well serve as an example of what can be achieved, if two broadcasting institutions work together. It was certainly no mean feat to get 407 kilograms of broadcasting material from Bonn to Windhoek! Hopefully the way has now been paved for further support, be it technical, financial or otherwise.
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