Lucia’s story

My name is Lucia Kanamseb. I am 22 years old and I have one child, 4-year-old Tcise.

I don’t want more children, just Tcise. When he grows up, he can become a teacher at the primary school here in Donkerbos.

I have a job. I am making beads of ostrich egg shells at home and selling them through an NGO, who picks them up and brings me new materials.

I brought one string of beads with me so that people can see it in the photo. This one is one meter long. I get 65 Namibian dollars (approximately 4 EUR / USD) for it.

Making one of these takes a lot of time. You first have to chip the beads from ostrich eggshell and make holes in them. Only after that can you start threading them. This particular one took me about two weeks to complete

I also make leather dresses by hand. I enjoy what I do and I want to continue working with these things and other projects we will establish in Donkerbos.

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Lucia’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Lucia is performing on the dancing-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs

Oupa David’s story

My name is Dawid Kleinbooi. I am very old, even so old that my memory is not always working properly. But I know that I miss the olden days when we lived in the nature.

When I was young, I used to hunt a lot. I hunted duiker, kudu and eland. They are all antelopes. I would go on my own but if I caught something, I would give to everyone.

I still know how to hunt but I can’t do it anymore. Even if I was younger, I would not be able to because we are not allowed to do it.

You are asking so many questions about today but I am not sure what I should say because the past is the only thing I want to talk about.

I think it is good if people elsewhere get to know about us. Maybe that way we can get more clients for the magnet souvenirs we made (https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs).

We would also like to start a number of income-generating projects for the community.

The main thing is that we have do not have any means to help the kids in the community. That is why they drop out of school in grade 8 or 9 and do not go further in studies and life.

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Oupa David’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Oupa David is performnig on the hunting-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs

Eva’s story

My name is Eva Tsikitis. I would like people to know how it was when I was a girl.

We lived in the nature, moving around. Grandpa would go hunting and grandma would cook for us. When we got thirsty, grandma would find special plants that have much water in them. In the night, we slept under animal skins.

Now I have seven children of my own and we have been living here in Donkerbos for a long time. My little ones do not even know about wild meat.

I wish we could return to the old life where we could move around. There is not much to do here. I wake up in the morning, wash the dishes and rake the yard. After that there is nothing else do but socialise with family and neighbours.

I hope there would be jobs in Donkerbos so that we could support our children and have more to do.

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Eva’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Eva is performing on the dancing-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs

Tsamkao T’s story

My name is Tsamkao Taiseb. I am 27 years old.

The one thing I am proud of in my life is my family, my parents, grandparents and siblings. I would like to stay close to them here in Donkerbos, but I can’t do it much longer.

There is no work here. I need to move to town – to Gobabis 4 hours away. I travel there to look for work as often as I can afford it.

I will go again when I have managed to save up from the piece works I sometimes get on the farms around here. They don’t pay well and the working conditions are not good but something is always more than nothing.

When I move, I will miss the nature around here. I will always remember the evenings by the fire with my father and my brother. We used to go hunting together when I was small. I still go out to the bush on my own sometimes but i feel lonely then.

I wish in the future young people would have a choice on whether they want to move out of the community or not.

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Tsamkao’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Tsamkao is performing on the hunting-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs

Katrina’s story

My name is Katrina Samkau. I am 29 years old. I have six children and a husband. Valentino here is my youngest, seven months old.

When Valentino grows up, I want him to become a policeman. He must protect Donkerbos and our country, Namibia.

If I had to describe my lifestyle to people who don’t know me, I would say that I am making and selling traditional bead jewellery and the animal skin clothes we use when dancing.

Nowadays we are dressing up in the animal skin clothes only if tourists ask us to make a dance performance. When this happens, we first ask them to pay for the show. We don’t normally wear those clothes anymore because we are independent now.

So we make our living from making things and selling them. We are going forward with this life.

My community wants to start more income-generating projects so that we can improve our lives even more.

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Katrina’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Katrina is performing on the dancing-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs

Tsamkao’s story

My name is Tsamkao Magotsi. I am 18 years old.

When I was schooling, I lived with my parents. Now that I dropped out, I should go and live by myself.

I am trying to find work to make a living and be able to buy food, toiletries and clothes. I also want to support my grandparents, parents and siblings as they supported me when I was a child. We are five children in the family.

There are no jobs here in Donkerbos or close by. In the past, I could get some short-term work at construction sites but those jobs stopped when the government run out of money and public construction jobs finished.

Life here is tough, but I have decided that I will not do wrong things when I am growing up. I know that my life is in my hands.

In my spare time, I like to play football. My best friend plays it with me. He is my best friend because he treats me with respect, and respect is one of the things I consider most important in life.

We are trying to encourage other teams to come and play here in Donkerbos since our team cannot afford to travel to other places to play.

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Tsamkao’s community, Donkerbos, has designed several income-generating projects that they want to start. Please consider donating seed money to them through the crowdfunding campaign on https://sanstarter.ictechhub.com/

If you are in Namibia, you can also support the community by purchasing one of the unique fridge magnet souvenirs they have made in collaboration with the ICTechHub. Tsamkao is performing on the hunting-themed magnet. For more information, see https://ictechhub.com/buy-augmented-reality-souvenirs

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