Ottilie Abrahams

Ottilie Grete Abrahams (2 September 19372 July 2018) was a Namibian educator, activist, and politician.

Personal Abrahams was born on 2 September 1937 in the Old Location township outside of Windhoek. Abrahams was the daughter of Otto Schimming and Charlotte Schimming. Her father was the first Black teacher in Namibia. Her sister Nora Schimming-Chase became the first Namibian ambassador to Germany after the independence of Namibia. Before obtaining a degree in Cape Town, she attended Trafalgar High School in District Six in Cape Town.

She and her husband Kenneth Abrahams raised four children, youngest son, Rudi Abrahams. One daughter is the scientist and activist Yvette Abrahams, her son Kenneth Abrahams overtook the management of the Jacob Marengo School after her death. At the time of her death, she lived in the affluent suburb of Klein Windhoek. The Namibian newspaper memorialized her as the "Mother of Education." However, she left SWAPO Democrats in 1980 and later joined the Namibia Independence Party, where she served as the Secretary General and Publicity and Information Secretary. The Namibia Independence Party was part of the Namibia National Front coalition which won one seat in the 1989 election to the Constitution-writing Constituent Assembly of Namibia.

Life in exile From 1963 until 1978 Ottilie Abrahams lived in exile with her husband and their children. They lived in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Lusaka, Zambia and for nine years in Stockholm, Sweden. With United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 they returned to Namibia in 1978.