Aroab CDLC lauded by stakeholders
AROAB - Members of the community as well as political and administrative leaders all heaped praise on the Government of Japan through its Grant Assistance for Grassroots Human Security Projects (GGP) for handing over a first-ofits kind Community Learning and Development Centre last week at this south-eastern village.
Lamech Salupito, a teacher at Oosterheim Combined School in Araob, said it is indeed a great step forward to address the raging unemployment rate of the youth in the village.
“Through this noble deed by the Japanese embassy, our youngsters are now provided with the opportunity to upgrade their skills and receive the needed knowledge to improve their socio-economic conditions of life”, he observed.
Salupito said the youth can also be enabled through this venture to become employment-creators, and urged them to take this lifeline thrown at them with both hands. He then thanked the embassy for such a great, noble deed bestowed on the community.
Meanwhile, Aroab resident Gordon Titus said since the youth comprise an integral segment of the village’s population, they should lead the developmental agenda and aggressively partake in skills development programmes to be offered at the facility in future.
“Let this building please not turn into another ‘white elephant’, and you should now take ownership of this golden opportunity as you are the future of this community,” he pleaded.
He added that residents should feel honoured and be thankful to the government of Japan for its concerted efforts in uplifting their livelihoods.
“I am overjoyed that we were able to devise a strategy to create a promising future for the children with the work that we do ourselves,” said Ingrid
Coetzee, principal of Oosterheim Combined School, on whose grounds the facility was constructed.
She noted that the CLDC will serve as a focal point for the Aroab community, and also be of assistance to learners attending the school before and after school as well as during examination time. “It is a solution that benefits everyone in every way,” she added.
The education ministry’s deputy executive director, Gerard Vries, at the event stated that the inauguration of the CLDC in Aroab will be a first step in ushering in opportunities for the communities in the catchment areas to access learning and skills for self-reliance and sustainability. I am optimistic that this small step will reverberate for generations to come,” he noted.
Also contributing was Seraphine Hangue, chief education officer for Adult Education and Lifelong Learning at the //Kharas regional education directorate, who said they would like to start activities at the centre with handson training in income-generating skills such as small-scale livestock farming, agriculture and baking, to mention but a few, and as identified by the community.
Adult education director Mzingisi Gqwede reasoned that the CLDC will allow the community to make the most of the opportunity so that everyone can benefit from it to the fullest extent possible. ‘‘We would like to extend our most heartfelt gratitude to the people of Japan, through their embassy in Namibia, for illustrating the importance of genuine concern and friendship, as well as for continuing to work together on a variety of levels of government,” he said.
A decision was made by the ministry to use the CLDC in Aroab as one of the pilot cases for small-scale CLDC’s. The other pilot case will be for such facilities on a medium-scale, whilst the ministry’s long-term goal is to implement CLDCs on some scale in each of Namibia’s 121 constituencies.