A year later, he began his career as an activist in Namibia, working to support contract labourers returning to Ovamboland.
In 1971, he spent a period of time in Namibia as a volunteer teacher at St Mary's Anglican School in Ovamboland, but on being refused a permit to enter Ovamboland by the South African government he was asked by Bishop Colin Winter to remain in Windhoek to help establish a diocesan library and study centre for correspondence students.
Shivute was born in northern Namibia in the former Ovamboland bantustan.
Following ordination, Mallory served in Damaraland, first as Rector of Tsumeb, until 1962, and subsequently as Director of the Ovamboland Mission, also in South West Africa (Namibia), from 1963 to 1969, serving as Archdeacon of Ovamboland from 1964.
An estimated 250,000 people, primarily in the former Ovamboland regions of Oshana, Ohangwena, Omusati and Oshikoto, were left stranded without outside access except by helicopter, with another 65,000 facing displacement.
He defended SWAPO activists Aaron Mushimba and Hendrik Shikongo, accused of the 1975 assassination of a senior church figure of former Ovamboland.
Also, Shikongo was believed to have significant political support among Ovambo people born outside of the cultural Ovamboland, known as Ombwitis.
St Mary's Mission in Odibo was established in August 1924 by George Tobias, Nelson Fogarty, and Reverend R White, Anglican priest that had the task of setting up a mission in northern Ovamboland.