Nora Schimming-Chase
Nora Schimming - Chase ( born December 1, 1940 in Windhoek ) is a Namibian politician and former civil rights activist.
Person
Origin, study abroad and
Nora Schimming is the daughter of Otto Schimming (1908-2005), the first black teachers in Namibia. Both father and mother are from mixed relationships and each had German fathers. Nora has two sisters: Othilie and Charlotte. She grew up in Windhoek District Highland Park, attended the MH Greef Primary School in Windhoek, completed 1958 her Abitur at the Trafalgar High School in Cape Town and in 1961 a Bachelor of Education at the University of Cape Town.
Use of a scholarship she started in 1962 to study political science and African studies at the Free University of Berlin ( MA 1968). At that time, Nora Schimming was also at the ARD and the German Development Service (DED ), having worked as a television journalist for the German political program " The International brunch " ( 1968-1974 ) and came as an exchange student courses at Columbia University, New York (1962 -1967 ). During her time in West Berlin, she met the West Indian industrial engineering student William Chase know who she married later. In 1970, she started at the University of Berlin a thesis on the sociological aspects of the novels of the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe.
Schimming was from 1962 a member of the South West African National Union ( SWANU ) and initially served as party secretary for education. From 1974 to 1978 she headed the SWANU foreign office in Dar es Salaam.
Return to Namibia, diplomatic and political activity
Under the amnesty of Resolution 435 of the UN Security Council the family Chase in 1978 returned to South West Africa. In 1981, Nora Schimming - Chase SWANU Party Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and elected 1982 Vice-President of SWANU. 1982 to 1989 she served as Secretary General of the SWANU. In addition to her political activity Schimming - Chase had during the 80's also important influence in the building of Churches in Namibia (CCN) and sat down, inter alia, for women's rights in Namibia. 1987 to 1989, she took a leading position in Geneva at the World Council of Churches ( WCC).
With Namibia's independence in 1990 took over Schimming - Chase various diplomatic posts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: from 1990 as Secretary of State for Multilateral Relations, 1991, as interim Chargé against France, 1992-1996 as an ambassador against Germany and from 1994 to 1996 also Austria, and representative in relation to the organizations United Nations Industrial development Organization (UNIDO ) and Atomic Energy ( IAEA).
1999 Schimming - Chase founding member of the Congress of Democrats ( CoD ), and from 2000 a member of the National Assembly. As a result of the poor performance of the Congress of Democrats in the general election in November 2009, Schimming - Chase withdrew from politics. She lives now divorced from her husband as a single mother in Windhoek.