page_title: Joseph Kalimbwe
section_title: Youth participation
hierarchical_section_title: Joseph Kalimbwe / Youth participation
caption_attribution_description: English: Kalimbwe speaking at a youth gathering in 2016
context_page_description: Joseph Kalimbwe is a Zambian born youth activist, author and a former Namibian student leader who served as president of the student representative council of the University of Namibia in 2017. In 2014, he was appointed president of the African Union youth simulation forum, a youth organized advocate program of the African Union. He has written for the Namibian Sun, and has published three books including Persecuted in Search of Change in 2017, The Pain of An Empty Stomach in 2015 and Teenage-Hood & the Impact of the Western World in 2014.
context_section_description: Kalimbwe has participated in African youth activism and was elected student representative council president of the University of Namibia. He was expelled from his Master's programme at the university in 2017 after breaking into a cafeteria with other students to use it as a study area, claiming that there were not enough designated study spaces. He also took part in the FeesMustFall protests in which university students demanded a decrease in university fees. He was later arrested as a result of this campaigning.
  According to The Namibian, the student protests in Namibia are happening "against the backdrop of the Affirmative Repositioning youth movement occupying urban land, and the Landless People's Movement reclaiming ancestral land in Namibia; 'Rhodes Must Fall' and 'Fees Must Fall' protests by South African students in their quest to decolonise their universities.
  During the #FeesMustFall movements in South Africa, Kalimbwe was advocating for Namibian government to scrape fees for poor students. He later was arrested in 2017 after a protest in Windhoek. His trial was postponed several times. At his 10th appearance on 30 November 2018, the state found that the trial could not continue as there was no evidence and lack of state witnesses with the state advocating for the case's removal from court roll. Later that evening, New Era (Namibia) reported that the state had lost the case against Kalimbwe whose lawyers had promised legal action against the "unfair treatment" of their client.
caption: Kalimbwe addressing youths during a gathering at University of Namibia in 2017
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