Since its establishment in the 1920s, St Mary’s Odibo Mission had always strived to become self-reliant and provide local people with useful and meaningful knowledge and skills aimed at growing and improving rural communities and economies. Since the time of missionaries, skills development activities characterised the work of the Mission throughout the 1930s until the time of its closure in the late 1970s. Given that St Mary Odibo Mission goal has always focused on knowledge dissemination for development and well-being of its surrounding communities and people, skills development and employment creation programmes are planned to be established. Located in one of the poorest regions with high unemployment rates in Namibia, the Skills Development and Apprenticeship Programme will provide basic knowledge and skills to enable people to become more productive and play an active role in the development of their communities. In subsequent years, once infrastructure has been well developed this programme will be transformed into Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) qualifications.

To ensure the employability and capacity to create employment of graduates, a small business development unit will be attached to the TVET programme so as to offer business spaces, financial assistance and advisory services to graduates on growing their economic capacities and businesses. The unit will house innovation and marketing modules aimed at providing advanced skills for product finishing and promotions so that graduates who are creators of ground-breaking products are enabled to perfect their products and gain knowledge in patenting and marketing their creations. Experienced individuals and financial resources are required to establish and develop both the qualifications and the business development unit. Read more....