Kunene Governor Marius Sheya says green hydrogen opportunities offered to young people in the region have not been responsive to the needs of school drop-outs.

Sheya is advocating for their inclusion in future projects.

Sheya is leading a delegation, which includes members of the Kunene Regional Council and local authorities.

The group is on a benchmarking visit to green hydrogen projects in the Erongo Region.

Sheya informed governor Neville Andre that there are no tertiary or vocational training institutions in Kunene, while there are a high number of dropouts who might end up being excluded from green hydrogen projects planned for the region.

"We have a lot of young people who only have grade 10, who only have grade 7, who are only grade 12. These are not masters degrees; how do we include them in this project in the future? And I think one of the answers we got yesterday that all of us were impressed about was the issue of Daures, where they said because they have seen from that exercise, they have then gone to say, we want a training centre here that would then take these dropouts and first upskill them with the necessary know-how because not everyone who works in green hydrogen needs to be an engineer."

Sheya further highlighted the need to include green hydrogen courses at vocational training centres instead of having investors build their exclusive academies on site.

Erongo Governor Neville Andre, in response, said, "If you want to ensure that there is a broad participation of local and young people from the region, include all the sectors. Go to all of them, traditional authorities; we also had them involved, so all sectors of society should be included, and then you will be able to reach a substantial number of your people in the region."

There are currently three green hydrogen projects under construction in the Erongo Region.