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Good news from Namibia and around the world

LOCAL

HAN announces positive occupancy rates as tourism recovers

The Hospitality Association of Namibia has published occupancy statistics for the peak of this year’s tourism season. CEO Gitta Paetzold announced that the month of July 2022 showed a spectacular national occupancy rate of over 51%. This is only 8% short of the occupancy rate in 2019, the “normal” year before the COVID-19 pandemic shook the globe. Namibia’s main source market – central Europe – now accounts for 57% of our foreign visitors, compared to 53% in 2019.

Source: HAN July report

Walvis Bay Private School donates to government schools

When the Walvis Bay Private High School found itself sitting with a surplus of textbooks it approached the acting Walvis Bay circuit inspector, Joseph Martin, to discuss their use elsewhere. This led to an initiative to donate textbooks to all government schools in the Walvis Bay area. A total of 800 primary school and 661 secondary school used books are part of the drive. “Today, all principals will walk away with books for their pupils. It is really a relief. We cannot thank this school enough", Joseph Martin said. Despite being allocated the largest share of the national budget (N$14.2 billion for 2020/21) the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture relies heavily on the private sector for donations.

Source: The Namibian

Community rakes in N$129 000 from devil's claw

The Namibia Integrated Landscape Approach for Enhancing Livelihoods and Environmental Governance to Eradicate Poverty (Nilaleg) project has facilitated the sale of 3 240kg of devil's claw, a plant native to southern Africa. A group of 186 community members from the Kavango West Region harvested the plants, which are used to treat pain, liver and kidney problems, fever and malaria. The Namibia Nature Foundation, on behalf of the Nilaleg project, trained community members on the sustainable harvesting of natural resources, particularly devil's claw. The harvest was sold to EcoSo Dynamics at N$40 per kilogramme, earning N$129 000 for the community. This is a long-term project. The second harvest is scheduled for sale in October.

Source: The Namibian

THE GLOBE

Fog nets help to combat drought in arid Africa

Thanks to mathematician and businesswoman Dr Aissa Derhem, who invented the fog net, agricultural communities in the Moroccan desert can irrigate their crops during drought. Fog nets are multilayered mesh constructions designed to accumulate water particles in areas where rain is scarce, but ocean fog isn’t. Derhem learned about the use of fog in the driest place on Earth – the Atacama Desert in Chile, where officially it has never rained. Inhabitants use fog nets to capture what little moisture entered their environment. However, in order to make fog nets functional in Dr Derhem’s birthplace, Mount Boutmezguida in southwestern Morocco’s Anti-Atlas range, the design had to be adjusted to cope with extreme winds. The 1,600 inhabitants of this remote region now have a daily water supply of 18 litres each, exclusively gathered from the fog collection nets.

Source: Good News Network

Ordinary plastic can be transformed into a diamond with a laser beam

In recent tests at the University of Rostock in Germany, PET (polyethylene terephthalate plastic), which is usually used for food packaging, was heated by a laser beam at 6,000 degrees celsius. The sheet of plastic is instantly compressed by a weight equal to a millionfold more than Earth’s atmospheric pressure, configuring the PET into a nanodiamond. At their core, diamonds are simply a solid form of carbon arranged intricately along hydrogen and oxygen atoms. PET is made of petroleum, also known as hydrocarbon. The University of Rostock’s breakthrough in synthetic diamond production could mean more demand for water bottles and containers which could otherwise end up in the sea.

Source: Good News Network

Botswana cuts HIV transmission to children from 40% to 1%

The World Health Organisation recently congratulated Botswana for the “groundbreaking achievement” in stopping HIV transmission from mothers to their newborns. The national program that was launched 23 years ago urged expecting mothers to test for HIV. Positive mothers would then undergo antiretroviral treatment. Newborns are also given antiretroviral therapy for six months after birth, thereby successfully lowering transmissions from 40% to only 1%. “This is a huge accomplishment for a country that has one of the most severe HIV epidemics in the world. Botswana demonstrates that an AIDS-free generation is possible,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. More than 1.7 million new infections in children have been averted in Botswana since 2010.

Source: Good News Network