We are three KYC.TV youth members. We visited the Ozohambo settlement in Otjinene to interview people about tree cutting, together with SDI intern Pietro Sandro Chiri Zapata. In total, we interviewed five people, but only three agreed to be recorded.
Silvia Mujoro is 50 years old and makes her living selling firewood. She buys it from local people who bring it in by donkey cart, for between N$150 and N$200. What she earns feeds her children and she also helps others in the community who have no income of their own. Her difficulty is supply. Some weeks her suppliers bring a lot of wood, other weeks very little and that makes it hard to run a steady business. She has asked the councillor for donkey carts, so that she can collect and carry the wood herself instead of buying it from others.
Uasaneka Hengari is 39. She has sold firewood since 2010, because she had no other income. At first she collected the wood herself and carried it home on her head. Later she began buying from people with donkey carts. She also sells basic household goods such as sugar and tea bags. Her goal is to improve her family’s living conditions. Her challenge is that she cannot cut the wood herself. She has to pay someone else to do it, and that takes a share of what she earns.
