David212091018

Introduction

This article is based on a village called Ogongo, situated in the Northern part of Namibia. This article is focusing on the development process of Ogongo village.

Before independence

In the early 90’s this used to be a place where hard work determined the peoples living style. There were no roads in this village, there was no electricity, no water, people used to walk few distances to go collect water from dams and wells, and some went to the neighboring town Oshakati. There were no shops except for shabeens at Ogongo village people used to go to Oshakati to buy their goods and necessities, although it was not easy because transport to Oshakati was rare and expensive. There were hardly jobs available for the people, so people used to rely on their mahangu fields and livestock for maintenance and survival. There were no proper church buildings that time, so people gathered under a tree for their services, same applies to schools, and due to the lack of secondary schools in Ogongo learners used to go to schools in neighboring towns after they have completed their grade seven. There was only one clinic at that time and it was situated far from the residents.

After independence

When Namibia got its independence the government had plans to develop the country including different villages to and Ogongo village turned out to be part of these villages. The government started building primary and the Ogongo combined secondary school.Plans were made to build a clinic to at least for the people in that settlement to have access to a nearby clinic. A construction of the main road also took place. The development led to the Ogongo library project, were the got assistance from people like Rachel manley, who was also a teacher at Ogongo combined school.

There was  a base in this village which was called Ogongo base and was located just to the south of the tar road, approximately 50 kilometers west of Oshakati, on the Oshakati to Ruacana road. The base was situated next to the Ogongo Agricultural College in the village of Ogongo. It was a satellite base of 53 BN, Ondangwa in Sector 10. The map provided below shows the base as it looked during the 1980s. . 

Ogongo agricultural college

The development of the Ogongo agricultural college has not only added to a bettr health of the community but also job creation and also gives the village a good image and also attracts tourists,and have better chances of getting funds from different companies and constitutions.

Ogongo2 Observatory

The Ogongo2 observatory is situated on the communal farming areas in the Omano Go Ndjamba village which is an estimated 10 kms west of the college on similar latitudinal location to Ogongo 1 observatory. The land use system in this village as in most parts of central-northern Namibia is agro-silvi-pastoralism, based primarily on pearl millet Pennisetum typhoides as the cropping component (locally known as Mahangu), livestock keeping through communal grazing, and a multipurpose use of indigenous plants e.g. wood harvesting. Although this conventional way of life has, for many decades protected the environment within which they live, the system is said to be currently under stress mainly due to population increase (Kreike, 1995). . This is now a well developed village were technology has played a very big role in uplifting it up, good education is available for the students, water and electricity is also available for the community, and because of their agricultural college they now have access to healthy food and healthy life style.