Waste management at /Ai-/Ais resort awakens socio-economic opportunities
As one of its mandates, the NAMPLACE project looks to strengthen protected area networks by promoting landscape management for biodiversity through co-management with local stakeholders. At landscape level, this means among other things, to improve local relationships in conservation by providing opportunities that empower communities. Environment conservation is tightly linked to socio-economic development and to maintain a balance, the two should be equally upheld.
NAMPLACE partnered with the /Ai-/Ais Hot springs resort in 2012, to clean up the rubbish that had been piling up for over 60 years. This consisted of various types of waste including glass, plastic, paper, wood and building debris. Illegal dumping had become the norm and cleaning up became harder and more costly over the years. The clean up initiative received support from resort workers, unemployed local residents, MET and NAMPLACE personnel. Through this campaign many other opportunities began spiraling out, to the benefit of the business-savvy individuals involved. First was the employment of two volunteers as Waste Management Officers at the resort, second was the business prospect for the waste collecting company in Keetmanshoop and local recycling resident, Martin Rooinasie.
Martin Rooinasie is a local entrepreneur who transforms waste into products that are popular with tourists. Namplace intervened to assist Mr. Rooinasie improve production time and quality so that he can sell better products. The project has bought equipment and tools that will catapult his work and his determination to uplift other unemployed people in his community. His ambition is to “work with people coming from jail as a way of continually rehabilitating them, as well as children who live in the streets, to teach them a sense of responsibility and decent ways of earning a living”.
To find out more about the programme and other NAMPLACE intervention in the landscape, contact:
Manini Kandume – Communication Consultant
NAMPLACE Project
Tel: 061 2842735
Email: mkandume@namplace.org.na
