Namibian trio in line for Fiji island lifetime experience

Three Namibian women are among 50 semi-finalists selected from 3 500 applicants of 60 countries for the ‘This is your Life Change’ project. Broker’s assistant Elizabeth Mununga Mbambi, 26, Lorraincia Lucretia De Juy, 26, a fulfilment officer at Standard Bank Namibia, and Lillian Van Wyk, 27, who is working with doctors and researchers on a project to eliminate malaria, stand a chance to become one of the six winners who will travel to the remote Fijian island of Vorovoro in the South Pacific for an experience that will totally change their l ives. The incredible life-changing opportunity was launched on January 1, 2015, and anyone from anywhere in the world could take part. The winners will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Vorovoro in August, where they will receive a two week training course from a business coach, life coach and personal trainer. Contestants were required to produce a two-minute video about them introducing their secret dreams, and upload it to YouTube. Mbambi says her dream is all about women empowerment, fitness and fashion and she wants to restore confidence in overweight people. She intends to do this by selling fitness videos and giving tips on how to lose weight, as well as fashion talk shows with special guests. De Juy wants to become a powerful motivational speaker on debt management and life experience challenges and will focus on topics such as how to get rid of fear, how to realise your secret dreams, how to become a winner and leadership skills. Van Wyk would like to establish two facilities at Lüderitz. She plans to help teenagers and adults with alcohol and drug addiction. The second facility would be a vocational training centre. To qualify for the final six, three contestants will be selected by the judges based on how long they want to be on the island. The contestants can make use of the local media to share their stories in order to gain local support for their secret dreams. Contestants can also create a Facebook group or page to get votes from friends. The finalists were also asked to come up with creative, clever and ingenious ways to convince and show the organisers that the opportunity will change their lives and they want it desperately. The other three participants will be selected by the public. Web pages were created on the This Is Your Life Change website (www.thisisyourlifechange.com) on which people can vote for the finalists. ‘This is your Life Change’ is the brainchild of 35-year-old Mark Bowness of BBC ‘Paradise or Bust’ fame, who plans to pluck six lucky individuals from obscurity and turn their hopes, dreams and aspirations into reality. With their lives transformed, the winners will return home to start their new journey and make a positive impact on their families, friends and communities. The life-changing prize package is valued at US$200 000 (N$2.4 million) and the whole adventure will be filmed for what Mark anticipates will become a groundbreaking new TV series titled ‘This Is Your Life Change’. Mark’s previous project, a five-part BBC documentary ‘Paradise or Bust’ in 2008, saw a group of strangers launch an eco-community on Vorovoro, the same 200-acre island which he will use again for his latest project. “We are looking for people who are willing to step out of their comfort zone and create the life they know they were born to live. We want people with an undeterred passion to make a change that will benefit not only themselves, but also the broader community,” said Bowness, who currently lives in Melbourne, Australia, and experienced his own ‘life change’ when his marriage suddenly ended nine years ago. He hit rock bottom and tried to end his own life and woke up in hospital with what he describes as “a profound realisation of how precious life is”. Three months later he leased Vorovoro and established Tribewanted with a friend, and became a ‘dream enabler’. WINDHOEK STAFF REPORTER