18 Feb 2015

Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP) has trained 50 beneficiaries from Ngamiland district in fisheries under the poverty eradication programme.

In an interview with an official from the department, Mr Kaelo Nkile explained that the training was done in two phases. 

The first batch of 21 beneficiaries completed their training last week and 29 beneficiaries were currently attending one week training at Ngamiland Rural Training Centre (NRTC) situated in Nxaraga village.  

NRTC is responsible for training farmers in the transfer technologies. It also offers training in all aspects of crop production, animal production, marketing of agricultural produce, hides and skin, food-processing, usage of dry land and also plant cattle feed. 

Courses offered at the Centre ranges from one to six weeks.  Thus, Mr Nkile said the aim of the training was to equip and empower the beneficiaries with basic life skills in areas such as mind set change, business planning and management, book keeping and how to make business flourish. Beneficiaries were also taught about the fishing steps like how to prepare and place the net in the river, fish processing on dry, smoked and fresh one.

Last year, Mr Nkile said they trained over 30 beneficiaries adding that they were assisted with equipment to start their projects.  He said most of the trainees were young people who benefited through Youth Fund. At the moment, he said there was no project which was operational owing to the delay in procurement and some internal issues. 

However, he indicated that they had started procurement since December last year.

Another challenge, he mentioned was the delay by suppliers as they did not buy equipment locally.  He noted that they would fast track the programme so that it produces expected results of uprooting poverty within the communities.  

Already, some of the beneficiaries had attended poverty eradication seminar which was held at Chanoga two years back. 

The aim of the seminar was to equip and empower them with basic life skills in areas such as mind set change, business planning, costing and pricing, quality assurance, aesthetic product packaging and branding, effective marketing and sales strategies and basic financial management.

The programme was introduced by government to uproot poverty through conducting seminars which offers beneficiaries with life skills training to enabling them to start living productively. ENDS