Background: Tsintsabis

The village where Treesleeper Camp has been set up is called Tsintsabis, which is located in the Oshikoto region in north-eastern Namibia. It can be considered an ‘agricultural village’. After independence (1990) the population has grown rapidly. Approximately eighty percent of the people here are Hei//omn Bushmen, but there are also quite a few !Khung Bushmen, Kavango, Owambo and Damara. People in Tsintsabis currently practise Christian religions, often combined with aspects from their traditional beliefs.

In ‘central Tsintsabis’ there are a school and a medical clinic. Around this centre the people live in houses and huts. A few kilometres outside central Tsintsabis there are two sub-settlements that are officially part of Tsintsabis. These are called /Gomkhaos and !Khosines. In the neighbourhood of Tsintsabis there are two more resettlement areas called Bravo and Oerwoud. There are some small shops where basic necessities are sold. A government co-ordinator and a traditional leader (with a development committee) take care of the place. Since 2006 there is also a police station.

Some of the inhabitants of Tsintsabis still hunt and gather (sometimes on surrounding commercial farms). There is some livestock in Tsintsabis, which belongs to only a few families. The cultivation of the plots is often not done sufficiently enough. Most of the people grow mahangu and maize. The knowledge for proper agriculture is lacking, together with some essential means.

Even though there is a lot of unemployment in Tsintsabis, most jobs are taken by ‘non-locals’. This is part of the overall problem of so-called tribalism in Namibia. And generally speaking Bushmen people are strongly discriminated. Since cultivation is not enough for self-sufficiency, a solution for this can be more variety in the (economic) means of existence (e.g. tourism). Obviously, in this case local people must also get a chance for jobs in their own village.

It is important for the people to find possibilities to integrate more with the ‘modern world’, so that they become able to develop themselves. People from ‘the outside’ (like government officials and/or NGO representatives) can support this process by creating these possibilities for them and assist with trainings and empowerment projects. The FSTN for example, has helped the people in that way by setting up the Treesleeper Camp community based and sustainable tourism project during the years 2002 until 2007. Trainings and empowerment have been vital aspects of that project.