By Pratap Sinha, VSO Volunteer, India

Volunteering, the word it self has common notion among us that it is labour, free of cost. Whole of our life we have spent time and money to gain professional degree and earn working experience, to have better quality of life for our self and our family. So why on earth we should do volunteering and spend our valuable time and experience in a country where we might never imagine going even as tourist? The answer to this question is within every individual. I can quote 1000s reasons for why we should not do volunteering but only one reason from within is enough to do it. More over sometime we dont need reasons to do something selfless, or something we believe in or just do something for a change. My volunteering term is coming to an end and I have realized that meaning of this word is much more vast and colossal than we can ever imagine. It has changed my life and for sure I will do it again. I got that one reason to do volunteering in March 2007 and soon I applied for IVO. Got selected and placement by July 2007. And since Sept 2007, I am working in Namibia in a Community based Enterprise Support Project under Namibian Association for CBNRM Support Organisation (NACSO). I am implementing the project in coordination with NACSOs partner NGOs working in Community based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in communal conservancies. My main responsibility is to provide technical assistance to rural communal conservancies and community groups to improve their livelihood through income generating activities based on eco tourism, crafts and natural products. The project aims to build capacity and to transfer skills to beneficiaries and staff of partner NGOs through volunteers. Namibia is governed under region system and there are 13 regions. My field is in Erongo region and South Kunene region which covers almost 1/5th of land area of the country i.e. approx 500km in radius. NACSO is an umbrella body which supports all the NGOs working under CBNRM along with the support of Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET), Government of Namibia. I am working in Community based Enterprise Support Project funded by European Commission (EC) and implemented by NACSO. I work very closely with the NGOs and MET to support 10 conservancies in my area mainly towards the business and enterprise development side. Conservancies are basically legally defined communal area which is managed by
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community with a proper constitution to protect the natural resource of the area as well as generate benefits for community. Size of a conservancy could be as big as 8000 hectare to 400 hectares with membership varying from 3000 to 100. Total annual budget of a conservancy may vary from 5lakh INR to 35lakh INR. My role is to develop business plans, strategies, financial support, joint ventures etc. The main source of income is joint venture (JV) partnerships in lodges and hunting is the second biggest source. The lodge partnership is with conservancies and private investor (who are entrepreneurs or International hotel Chains). Since I started working, we have facilitated and got signed new JV agreement, investment of nearly 9 corers INR in my region. This is expected to generating approx 150 direct jobs and around 500 indirect supporting jobs for community people and income of over 20 corers INR in 10 years time, over all. The existing joint ventures are already generating approx 1 corer INR per year in my region. Hunting JVs are amazingly profitable. This is done professionally and with quotas allotted by MET. The animals are tracked and chosen specially under the allotted quotas from MET. Culling is important to keep the balance in environment. Income from hunting varies such as an antelope could bring earning of 10000INR to trophy of elephant 10 lakh INR excluding the benefits from meat and skin for community. My other roles are in training conservancy committees on the business issues, negotiation of JV deals, conflict resolution, benefit distribution plan, JV management, planning business activities etc. Apart from these two major income generating activities, I also support in campsite development, craft and natural product. Campsites are very famous here. Tourists prefer self catering service and campsites. They have their tents, cooking equipments, sleeping bags etc every thing in 4 wheel drive car. So the campsites provide secured clean place with swimming pool, toilets and restaurant facilities. As a matter of fact, I am provided with all kind of camping gear to live in tents while I am in field. Basically I live at least 15 days monthly camping. Some times that includes bush and villages where there are no proper camping facilities. Income from formal campsite may be around 250-350INR per person per night. Craft industry is not that very strong in Namibia as in Eastern Africa. But it is still an important income generating activity for tribal women. There raw materials used in craft are generally ostrich egg shell, skin, seeds, rock and wood. They are very different and unique in them self. There is high demand of Namibian craft with tourists and in Europe. But due lack of resources and skills, market is limited. Total income generated in craft industry annually in Namibia is approx 12 corer INR to which my region might have only 3-5% of the share. My role here is to review and provide marketing support the on going craft business. In total I am working with 25 activities related to tourism, craft or natural product in 10 conservancies. This involves lot of coordination, communication and facilitation. The conservancy committees are governed under democratic institutional governance. They have to report back to community on there workings in general meeting (GM) and annual general meeting (AGM). My other responsibility includes support committees to prepare there financial and budget report for these meetings. These GMs and AGMs are kind of village panchayat meetings in India but difference is community people are more powerful than committees of conservancies. Although committees are given charge to govern the conservancy but they have to answer to all questions posed by communities during the meetings regarding finance, Natural resource, governance, operational issues etc. Which is very interesting learning for me and we often help them as external election commission to conduct democratic elections to elect committee members from communities. When ever I have to facilitate training, provide suggestions or advices then I always take in consideration the nature conservation aspect. There has been many article published in Namibian national news paper about our work and appreciation from EC and Government of Namibia. At the end of the day, I feel there is a challenge of developing skilled human resource in this country. Other wise there are lots of opportunity for development. In the Southern African region, Namibia has the best CBNRM practices. Often we receive visitors from

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other countries to visit conservancies in Namibia for study and replicating the same in their counties. It was my first journey abroad and I always dreamed of going to Africa since my university days. 14 hours on flight to Namibia was in it self an experience. Namibia looked just like what I saw on Google Earth. Vast yellow desert land and not a single building I could spot while landing on International airport, it crossed my mind that are we doing an emergency landing! I marched my way out of airport and spotted our program officer from VSO Namibia. I still remember it was Sunday and he specially came to pick us up covering 60 km from Windhoek city. While approaching the city, we where surprised to see almost no one on the road and very few cars and people in the Windhoek city. I was no doubt bit confused, is there anyone living in this city or its just desert as it looked on Google Earth. Thankfully, we spotted lots of people around on Monday. Namibian population is 2 million and it size is almost 1/5 th of India. Windhoek has approx 2 lakh population and it is the capital of the country. No doubt it was a challenge and I accepted it. The first week was good and easy as I was with another Indian and introduction training from VSO Namibia office was excellent. I was the 3rd Indian volunteer to get placement in Namibia and the other two lady Indian volunteers where working since a year before our arrival. Thankfully one of them was based in Windhoek who helped us a lot to understand the culture, tradition and system of the country. I must tell you that life becomes much easier when you find someone from home to guide you in foreign place. Before coming to Africa I was judgmental, had strong opinions based on Indian media, use to have lots of racial thoughts in my public communication and everything is wrong which is illegal or erroneous according to Indian Law or Hindu philosophy. Well my perception and outlook of life has changed. VSO Namibia has almost 80 volunteers in country at any given point of time from Europe, North America, East Africa, Asia and Australia. Although majority of them are from UK. Most of the volunteers who are here for 2 year placement are much more matured than me but I have lots of friends of my age group because I am a social geek. Apart from Namibian and VSO volunteers I have friends from Peace Core, UN volunteers, Self volunteers and other organization volunteers as well. This whole international community of friends makes life incredibly spicy and exciting. I must say I have gained wonderful friends from round the world. Due to living in this diverse social circle I have started perceiving life differently. I can now understand others point of view better and I have stopped being judgmental. My opinions are now not biased or racial and are culturally sensitive. My enhanced knowledge of culture, traditions and system from around the world made me not only professional better skilled in an international arena rather understand the meaning of life better. There had been moments when I stayed in temporary housing for 10 months because my placement agency couldnt find house in field and the pace of working style here make you much

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more tolerant and patient. It takes months or may be sometimes years to get a development work moving. Traditional politics, attitude to work, ethics, distance, communication etc bring lots of challenges to implement development project. Life moves in its own tempo here which is relaxing and challenging at the same time because we want to change lives and transfer skills in 2 years but usually we ends up changing our self.

iVolunteer Overseas
D-134, First Floor, East of Kailash New Delhi-110065

Tel.: +91 11-26217459 Email : vso@ivolunteer.in Website: www.ivoindia.org