Here for a long time
Willem Vahongaifa has been with the printing company for more than 22 years, working as a shift supervisor.
Monique Adams
Born and raised in Katatura, Vahongaifa always wanted more in life and always imagined himself living comfortably one day.
He attended Mandume Primary School and completed high school at Concordia College.
At the age of 17, he was a casual worker at the Polytechnic of Namibia (now the Namibia University of Science and Technology) and a part-time barman, and thanks to his hustling instincts, he applied at Newsprint.
“I joined the Newsprint family in 1998. I started off as a cleaner, moved on to black and white printing, then colour printing, then worked as a press operator and from there, the rest is history. Currently I am a shift supervisor,” he said.
Enjoying the challenges
His journey is humbling and impressive because he came to the company with no experience.
“Ever since I can remember, I’ve always enjoyed challenging myself when it comes to things I have never done before and being here at Newsprint, I am able to operate the machines as well as fix them,” Vahongaifa, better known as ‘Heavy’, said.
His daily duties at work include first looking at the schedule as there is a lot of commercial work that needs to be done on top of the printing of daily publications.
Biggest achievement
“The reason why I have stayed so long here at Newsprint is I love the job!”, he said, adding that it’s difficult to pick just one biggest achievement at the company so far because there have been many.
“It may not be seen by a lot of people of how much we do at Newsprint, but we do a lot. We print out newspapers for the whole nation to be up to date with the news and that in itself is the biggest achievement of my career,” he said.
Even though the world is moving to a digital space, Vahongaifa is positive that print media will be around for a long time and is excited for the future.”
Newsprint did not just give me a second home or family but this is where I met my wife and we have a family of our own with our three children. I want Newsprint to be around for the next 100 years,’’ he said.
Born and raised in Katatura, Vahongaifa always wanted more in life and always imagined himself living comfortably one day.
He attended Mandume Primary School and completed high school at Concordia College.
At the age of 17, he was a casual worker at the Polytechnic of Namibia (now the Namibia University of Science and Technology) and a part-time barman, and thanks to his hustling instincts, he applied at Newsprint.
“I joined the Newsprint family in 1998. I started off as a cleaner, moved on to black and white printing, then colour printing, then worked as a press operator and from there, the rest is history. Currently I am a shift supervisor,” he said.
Enjoying the challenges
His journey is humbling and impressive because he came to the company with no experience.
“Ever since I can remember, I’ve always enjoyed challenging myself when it comes to things I have never done before and being here at Newsprint, I am able to operate the machines as well as fix them,” Vahongaifa, better known as ‘Heavy’, said.
His daily duties at work include first looking at the schedule as there is a lot of commercial work that needs to be done on top of the printing of daily publications.
Biggest achievement
“The reason why I have stayed so long here at Newsprint is I love the job!”, he said, adding that it’s difficult to pick just one biggest achievement at the company so far because there have been many.
“It may not be seen by a lot of people of how much we do at Newsprint, but we do a lot. We print out newspapers for the whole nation to be up to date with the news and that in itself is the biggest achievement of my career,” he said.
Even though the world is moving to a digital space, Vahongaifa is positive that print media will be around for a long time and is excited for the future.”
Newsprint did not just give me a second home or family but this is where I met my wife and we have a family of our own with our three children. I want Newsprint to be around for the next 100 years,’’ he said.
Comments
Namibian Sun
No comments have been left on this article