The Osborne family through Victorian schools raised funds for the trip. Namibian schools, many built since independence, provide small share flats for teachers. Thus school life is closely intertwined to the adjacent villages. Last year President Nujoma alarmed civil groups by using his majority in Parliament to change the constitution to allow him a third five-year term. A secessionist movement in the anomalous Caprivi region has seen heavy handed persecution of indigenous San people, and several thousand fled into Botswana late last year.
Tourism is a sunrise industry for Namibia.
Managing its impact on the environment and wildlife and ensuring that communities reap some sustainable development from it are important challenges. Former Australian Volunteers Africa program officer Andee Davidson and his wife, Lisa, and their three kids, live in Windhoek. Andee is an Australian Volunteer working with an organisation that promotes community-based tourism by ensuring that new legislation allowing poor communities to manage access to their land and develop tourism is equitably developed. Australian Volunteer Pam McGrath and Ed Humphrey have spent a combined eight years working with isolated rural communities to develop nature conservancies, where locals act as natural resource monitors and game guards, and running environmental education programs for visitors and local schools. That's what Melbourne based Natasha Anderson has found during her Australian Volunteer assignment in Africa.