The Khwe community residing at Chetto, a village in Bwabwata National Park, says they feel out of touch with the rest of Namibia and the world.

The villagers have never had access to a radio frequency.

The Khwe are one of the indigenous San groups who live on the stretch of land between the Kavango and Kwando rivers in Bwabwata National Park.

About 6,700 Khwe reside in the many villages found in the park.

Those who live in Cheto say access to information is a foreign concept to them.

It was even worse during the COVID-19 pandemic, when residents had no idea what was going on.

"I was stopped at a checkpoint, and the people that were in my car were not wearing masks, so we were stopped by the police officers, and we had to ask them, Why are they telling us to put on masks? We had to get the information from the police officers at the roadblock who are seriously doing their work. They told us, no, you have to put on a mask."

The residents say the absence of a radio frequency forces them to rely on truck drivers passing through the park for bits of outdated news.

Even though residents with smartphones are able to share some information, not a lot of the villagers have access to them.

The closest town to purchase a newspaper is Katima Mulilo, about 200 km away.

The locals believe that the absence of a radio frequency is negatively impacting their lives, saying that it's hard for them to progress as a community.

"These are the effects of not getting information on time. That's why you find that our youth are not employed, because sometimes the vacancies are filled and we don't know. It's like you want to be on par with others, but if things are not coming to you, you just give up and say, This is how I am. I have to stay the way I am."

The nbc operates a low-power transmitter site in Omega, but it has a limited broadcast range of approximately 20 kilometres.

The national broadcaster had initially planned to extend their network to underserved areas, like Cheto, by constructing new high-power rebroadcasting transmission sites.

However, due to a lack of funds, the Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) migration project was halted in 2016.

The nbc's public relations manager, Beaulah Boois-Beukes, says that had the DTT migration project been completed, it would have significantly improved network coverage for the majority of Namibians.

According to Boois-Beukes, the five-year Integrated Strategic Business Plan (2021–2025) states the corporation is set to implement direct-to-home services to achieve 100% network coverage, making both radio and television accessible to all Namibians.