As part of its “Think Namibia” campaign and its ‘Aquaponics-Systems for Educational Institutions to Improve Food Security’, the Hanns Seidel Foundation recently handed-over a state-of-the-art aquaponics system to the Vocational Training School at Development Aid from People for People (DAPP) Namibia near Outapi in the Omusati region. 

The handover took place on 18 March 2025 with the project’s key partners, the Embassy of Finland to Namibia and Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL). With the support of these partners the Hanns Seidel Foundation is implementing a project aimed at contributing to knowledge improvement, skills training, and capacity development about climate smart agricultural practices to strengthen food security and to improve livelihoods in selected rural and urban communities in Namibia. 

With financial support from the Finnish embassy’s Funds for Local Cooperation (FLC) programme, HSF was able to build on a previous project pilot phase and to revisit the demo designs and revive the aquaponics training material on the lessons learnt. The main project scope was aimed at setting up three new systems in three urban and peri-urban set ups or training centres in disadvantaged communities with a resilient, fully-fledged aquaponics demo systems and doing in-house training of the users. 

The latest addition of aquaponics demo systems was awarded and now handed over to the Vocational Training School at DAPP  Namibia near Outapi in the Omusati region.

 The DAPP Vocational Training School is accredited by the Namibia Qualifications Authority (NQA) and is registered with the Namibian Training Authority (NTA). Currently, the school offers training in agriculture up to NQA-level 3, but with changes to the curriculum and infrastructure, including the aquaponics-system, the VTS will be upgraded to NQA-level 5. 

Excited and convinced about the benefit of such an aquaponics systems to further advancing local communities, Namibia Breweries Limited (NBL) came on board to further support the aquaponics project for another three years.

 Franklin Angermund, the NBL’s Sustainability and Public Affairs Manager, commended the project and the new system at DAPP: “We remain steadfast in caring for our people and planet. Our Brew a Better World Sustainably initiatives focus on making a positive social impact by empowering the community with practical aquaponics systems and updated training materials to ensure the students and staff can independently manage and sustain these systems. We brew a Better Namibia.”