Tses Glass, coming soon to a village… right here!

This post will probably be hugely boring for most of you, feel free to not read it… But for those in Namibia / curious about the development:

The official launching of Tses Glass Pty Ltd happened a few weeks ago! The president of Namibia was supposed to come but didn’t, but lots of other important from around here (council, traditional authorities, Berseba constituency head, various ministers, etc.) made it!

One of the main speakers for the event, plus a translator 

Tses Glass is officially happening. The feasibility studies are still being finished up over the next months, so I’m a bit confused. But it seems fair to say it’s happening, since they officially launched the company?

As one man said, “You look at Tses right now and there is nothing.” But they announced again the prediction of 47,000 jobs created in Tses itself, 160,000 created in all of Namibia, and the Tses population jumping from 2,000 to 200,000 within only a decade (or maybe 2). It’s hard to believe that within a few years, assuming all goes as planned, the people who are here now will make up only 1/100 of the people who are living in the city.

There’s also a claim that the new factory will eventually be responsible for 20% of the Namibian GDP. Anyone else wanna call bull?

Currently, glass is imported into this region from South Africa, India, and China. Supposedly Tses Glass should supply the entire region and world with all kinds of glass. There will be 3 factories (commercial/residential flat glass, containers, and tableware), and they’re being compared to a German factory that uses 1000 TONS of raw materials every day!

So yes, I’m a little skeptical. The claims seem pretty big. On the other hand, a lot of positives are already coming out of the project. There have been regular calls for the Tses community to jump on opportunities before they are stolen from “outsiders” – starting businesses, creating groups, getting things moving. The youth group I work with has been trying really hard to start small businesses (which they hope will grow when all of this stuff starts to happen)! In general, just having something this huge to talk about seems to be having huge effects on community mobilization, in lots of aspects of life. Pretty cool.

A local dance being performed before the event opened