Let’s Build Namibia – One Skill at a Time

I would like to share a message with my fellow Namibian youth about the value of vocational training.

In today’s world, vocational training centres are more important than ever. They provide us with the skills, knowledge, and opportunities needed to build a better future.

In 2012, I started working as a general worker at a construction company at Henties Bay. In 2014, I ran a small barbershop business under a tree. Life was hard.

In 2015, I moved to Windhoek in search of better opportunities. I joined a plumbing company as a general worker. Without any qualifications, that was all I could do. I worked there for almost three years.

One morning, I asked myself: “Why should I continue to struggle like this?” I knew the answer was education.

I started saving money and applied at various vocational centres. In 2018, I was admitted to the Eenhana Vocational Training Centre, where I studied general construction in plumbing and pipe fitting. I completed my course successfully.

In 2023, I was selected as one of the Youth for Green Hydrogen beneficiaries, sponsored by the German federal ministry of education and research, implemented by the Southern African Science Service Centre for Climate Change and Adaptive Land Management.

Now, in 2024, I’m pursuing a diploma in construction engineering at Triumphant College through the technical and vocational education and training programme.

To all school dropouts and unemployed youth: Please consider vocational training. Stop living on the streets, stop stealing, and stop destroying your future. That is not the way.

Let’s wake up and build Namibia with our own hands.

Let’s push, because if we don’t, nothing will move.

Paulus Paulus

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