Katutura youth opens tour company

The Young Achievers Empowerment project, a youth organisation in Katutura, is slowly turning away from being a donor funded organisation to a self-sustainable youth group. The group launched its tour company, Kasie Adventures, which was primarily established to provide income for the group. The launch took place on Wednesday at Xwama restaurant in Wanaheda.
Young Achievers aims to empower young people from Katutura through capacity building and skills transfer. The main aim of the group is to make sure that all young people in this programme make it to and through tertiary education.
According to a statement issued by Michael Mulunga, a member of Young Achievers, the idea for the company came from Young Achievers members who were conducting tours for international students living in Windhoek.
“Members of Young Achievers saw that there might be greater demand for this sort of tours and decided to launch a commercial enterprise to sustain their youth development work,” he said.
The name “Kasie” is derived from the street language spoken in Katutura and means “neighborhood.”
He added that the members were further inspired by the Minister of Environment and Tourism, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah, who encouraged young people to engage themselves in tourism related activities as the industry has many opportunities to offer, at the National Youth Week in April.
“Many tourists who come to Windhoek read about Katutura and expresses a desire to visit, but few are adventurous enough to go on their own. In recent years, a few tour companies have sought to serve these tourists by providing quick drive-through tours of Katutura in an air conditioned van or on the top of a bus, but they offer no real interaction with the people who live in Katutura,” said Mulunga.
Kasie Adventures will provide tours into Katutura that teach tourists about real life in the former township. Tour guides are senior youth members of Young Achievers who live in Katutura. Visitors  will meet the local people, shop in handicraft markets, sample typical street food (Okapana), have the opportunity to enjoy restaurants serving traditional food, visit local markets and more.
The establishment of Kasie Adventures was made possible by the hard work of Young Achievers’ members and a grant from the J. Kirby Simon Foreign Service Trust from the United States.  Wilderness Safaris trained the guides.