Young girls and women from the San community graduated from Digital and Dignity courses over the weekend at Okongo in the Ohangwena Region.
The graduates from the two Kavango regions and Otjozondjupa were the first beneficiaries of the pilot project offered by Okongo-based Ongula Homestead Skills and Technical Academy.
Ongula Homestead Skills and Technical Academy introduced the Digital and Dignity project to empower adolescents, girls, and young mothers in rural areas and townships with basic digital, tourism, and life skills, as well as sewing skills, which will mainly focus on manufacturing washable sanitary pads and school uniforms.
Speaking at the event, Information and Communication Deputy Minister Emma Theofilus commended the leadership of Ongula Homestead Skills and Technical Academy for the transformation initiative to improve the livelihood of the rural community, specifically the San and marginalised people.
"This training is necessary for dignifying those girls with no option whatsoever."
The co-founder of Ongula Homestead Skills and Technical Academy, Hilya Nghiwete, says the academy targets adolescent boys and girls who dropped out of school due to social challenges to access technical education to uplift them and keep them from wandering around shebeens.
The training was fully funded by Debmarine Namibia as part of their social responsibility, and this is what some of the graduates had to say:
Graduate Kerthu Mbangu said, "I am feeling grateful and nice, I am happy, I did not dream about this, but I am here, I am so grateful to come here to study, I thank the person who chose me to come here, we are San, we are different, but we can do everything. "
"I am very grateful, I have never graduated in my life before, I am thankful to our sponsor who sponsored me and to our trainer who gave me skills in sewing," says graduate Ndapewa Rooikaat.
The academy has also handed over a donation of 500 washable pads and twenty uniforms to learners at Ndjabeka Primary School in Okongo Circuit, which has the highest number of San learners in the region.