Witbooi visits RuralRevive initiative in Maltahöhe
The RuralRevive campus recently welcomed Vice President Lucia Witbooi, alongside the governor of the Hardap Region, Riaan McNab, to its facilities.
The delegation toured the facility and engaged with farmers, youth trainees and women entrepreneurs. The visit held particular significance for Witbooi, who previously taught in Maltahöhe and hails from Gibeon, a neighbouring community with shared history and current realities.
Her presence signalled support for the RuralRevive initiative and emphasised the need for government backing, in line with President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s national call for food self-sufficiency, local production and youth-driven development – a call that aligns closely with the work already taking root in Maltahöhe.
Collaborating
For RuralRevive, the visit served as reassurance that government and community actors are moving in the same direction, establishing platforms for opportunity and maintaining a shared space to explore alternatives collaboratively, placing Namibia on a sustainable development path.
“The vice president’s visit affirms that locally anchored initiatives are not peripheral experiments but recognised contributions to Namibia’s national development agenda,” RuralRevive said.
According to RuralRevive, Maltahöhe, like many rural towns in Namibia, stands at a crossroads.
Once sustained by the karakul industry, it now faces high unemployment, poverty and social decline.
Luxury tour buses pass through on their way to the desert, while local residents watch from the roadside; present, yet largely excluded from the surrounding economy. Through its Building a Desert-Based Economy initiative, RuralRevive is rewriting that trajectory.
Initiated in 2021 under the Wolwedans Foundation’s AridEden Project, the initiative has evolved from a fragile concept into a community-owned Section 21 entity. In a global context where “progress” is often defined elsewhere and imposed downward, RuralRevive is cultivating a horizontal space, one in which lessons and mistakes are shared openly, alternatives are tested in practice, dignity is restored to rural life, and observation becomes participation.
Tangible outcomes
Visible outcomes of the initiative include the establishment of a laundry with water-recycling capacity, horticulture training and organic production using grey-water reuse, social-enterprise ventures, and transport and recycling services. The Desert Academy will open in 2026 to equip the youth with horticulture skills to revive farms and restore food systems from within.
Underpinned by a philosophy of balancing people, planet and profit, RuralRevive seeks to build resilient and equitable tourism/conservation economies on five core pillars: commerce, community, conservation, culture and consciousness.
By assessing supply-chain gaps and identifying local needs, the project aims to revitalise Maltahöhe and its residents through a diversified local economy and to create sustainable entrepreneurial and employment opportunities for men and women in Maltahöhe and surrounding areas.
Achievements
RuralRevive has so far trained 200 local farmers to supply tourism and improve local food systems. More than 10 out of 45 tourism establishments (1 500 beds) were integrated into new sustainable value chains, with 40 new direct and indirect jobs created through the RuralRevive laundry and infrastructure projects.
An estimated 40 cohorts and individuals were trained under the Economix Programme. The Rural Revive initiative also achieved tangible progress in reducing the rural exodus, empowering the youth and women, and revitalising traditional livelihoods through entrepreneurship and skills transfer.
The delegation toured the facility and engaged with farmers, youth trainees and women entrepreneurs. The visit held particular significance for Witbooi, who previously taught in Maltahöhe and hails from Gibeon, a neighbouring community with shared history and current realities.
Her presence signalled support for the RuralRevive initiative and emphasised the need for government backing, in line with President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah’s national call for food self-sufficiency, local production and youth-driven development – a call that aligns closely with the work already taking root in Maltahöhe.
Collaborating
For RuralRevive, the visit served as reassurance that government and community actors are moving in the same direction, establishing platforms for opportunity and maintaining a shared space to explore alternatives collaboratively, placing Namibia on a sustainable development path.
“The vice president’s visit affirms that locally anchored initiatives are not peripheral experiments but recognised contributions to Namibia’s national development agenda,” RuralRevive said.
According to RuralRevive, Maltahöhe, like many rural towns in Namibia, stands at a crossroads.
Once sustained by the karakul industry, it now faces high unemployment, poverty and social decline.
Luxury tour buses pass through on their way to the desert, while local residents watch from the roadside; present, yet largely excluded from the surrounding economy. Through its Building a Desert-Based Economy initiative, RuralRevive is rewriting that trajectory.
Initiated in 2021 under the Wolwedans Foundation’s AridEden Project, the initiative has evolved from a fragile concept into a community-owned Section 21 entity. In a global context where “progress” is often defined elsewhere and imposed downward, RuralRevive is cultivating a horizontal space, one in which lessons and mistakes are shared openly, alternatives are tested in practice, dignity is restored to rural life, and observation becomes participation.
Tangible outcomes
Visible outcomes of the initiative include the establishment of a laundry with water-recycling capacity, horticulture training and organic production using grey-water reuse, social-enterprise ventures, and transport and recycling services. The Desert Academy will open in 2026 to equip the youth with horticulture skills to revive farms and restore food systems from within.
Underpinned by a philosophy of balancing people, planet and profit, RuralRevive seeks to build resilient and equitable tourism/conservation economies on five core pillars: commerce, community, conservation, culture and consciousness.
By assessing supply-chain gaps and identifying local needs, the project aims to revitalise Maltahöhe and its residents through a diversified local economy and to create sustainable entrepreneurial and employment opportunities for men and women in Maltahöhe and surrounding areas.
Achievements
RuralRevive has so far trained 200 local farmers to supply tourism and improve local food systems. More than 10 out of 45 tourism establishments (1 500 beds) were integrated into new sustainable value chains, with 40 new direct and indirect jobs created through the RuralRevive laundry and infrastructure projects.
An estimated 40 cohorts and individuals were trained under the Economix Programme. The Rural Revive initiative also achieved tangible progress in reducing the rural exodus, empowering the youth and women, and revitalising traditional livelihoods through entrepreneurship and skills transfer.
Comments
Namibian Sun
No comments have been left on this article