The Salamatu Foundation began in December 1996 as the Oupumako Project. It was founded as a memorial to Kyrstin Leonora Scharninghausen who died in November 1996 while serving with the Peace Corps in the southern African country of Namibia. Oupumako is the village where she lived and worked as a teacher/trainer to a circuit of four schools. The Oupumako Project involved constructing a library/resource center and filling it with educational tools for the surrounding communities.
The Kyrstin Scharninghausen Memorial Library opened in August of 1999. Since opening the library the Salamatu Foundation has sponsored and run educational workshops at the library and at the Ongwediva Teachers College. These workshops focus on both literacy and HIV/AIDS education. We are currently developing a "Storybook/Resource" project in which we will focus on a school and work with teachers at that school using books that we will then leave behind to be used by both teachers and learners.