Kasika
Kasika Conservancy in the eastern floodplains of the Zambezi Region has managed to buy its own boat to assist the community in the flood-prone areas with transport.
People in the area normally travel via Kasane in Botswana to reach Katima Mulilo during and after flooding, due to the impenetrable condition of the roads.
Accessing school is also a major problem for some learners during flooding, as they attend school at Mbalasinte Combined School, which is over two kilometres away.
Kasika only has a primary school from Grade 1 to 5. Chairperson of the Kasika Conservancy, Fransiska Simasiku, commended the government for empowering community members at grass-roots level to benefit sustainably from natural resources through the Community Based Natural Resource Management Programme (CBNRM).
“We appreciate the efforts of government for empowering our people to sustainably use natural resources and to benefit from these. The boat was bought from Botswana by the conservancy in July this year and it is worth N$60 000. It’s a happy day for the community of Kasika. The reason we bought the boat is because people are too far away to come to meetings and during flooding our people suffer so much,” Simasiku said.
“This is not the only benefit from the conservancy. The conservancy has also contributed N$400 000 to build four [classroom] blocks for the school currently underway,” said Simasiku.
A senior induna, who represented Masubia Chief Kisco Liswani III at the ceremony, Gilbert Liswaniso, cautioned against vandalism while praising the conservancy for its meeting its social responsibility.
“Please take care of the boat. What the conservancy is doing is commendable and needs to be emulated by others. This is meeting government halfway. I’m also happy that the conservancy is building classrooms,” Liswaniso said.
The boat can carry eight people, and more, and will only charge a nominal fee to passengers. Kasika Conservancy was formed in 1997 and it was gazetted in 2005. It generates a turnover of over a million dollars a year, mostly from hunting concessions and lodge operators.