CHAMPION OF COMMUNAL CONSERVANCIES MAXI LOUIS Maxi Louis grew up in a time where there were few opportunities for black women and fewer still that involved choosing a career path based on a passion. Yet, that is exactly what Maxi did.
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oday, Maxi is a multi award-winning conservationist and one of the pioneers in the establishment of Namibia’s internationally acclaimed Communal Conservancy Programme. As the director of NACSO, the Namibian Association for Communal Conservancy Support Organisations, she works with the private sector, government, communities and decision makers to find common ground and implement communal conservancy policies that encourage sustainable utilitisation, development and conservation of Namibia’s natural resources.
have choices here. I don’t have to do agriculture.” As we were travelling around I realised that what I wanted to do was tourism. Tourism is my heart, so I started studying tourism. When I came back, it was just when a lot of developments in the country were taking place and I decided I didn’t want to do conventional tourism work. I wanted do something very unique. Something that I learnt about in Australia was how local communities were getting involved in tourism. So my idea was to come back and get involved in local communities. At the time, we called it ‘community-based tourism’. The country was moving towards involving communities, so I met with somebody from WWF who had seen that I had a keen interest, and they said, “We should involve you in this.” So, I became a founding member of an organisation called the Community Based Tourism Association. That’s where my real life started. I started working with communities, mostly in the North West and the Zambezi regions, and that’s where I spent a lot of my time, in the rural areas, working with communities, trying to get them involved in tourism. Since then I’ve never looked back.
MYD: A dynamic woman, a life spent conserving our wildlife ... Maxi, where did it all begin? ML: I grew up in Katutura, where there were not many linkages and you had fewer opportunities in terms of what you really wanted to become. So growing up, running around the streets of Katutura, I had no vision in terms of what I really wanted to become. I just wanted to become something. In those days, before independence, schools offered the opportunity to become a teacher or a nurse and then you could also get into agriculture. That was it. I’d seen many teachers and nurses, so I decided to venture into agriculture, which was ironic because at the time I had no exposure to farms or communal areas. I was an urban child; I grew up in an urban area. When I grew up, my mom was a domestic worker. She worked for a couple that ran a bed and breakfast. Every holiday she would take me along to go and help out, to clean. As I cleaned, I came across a lot of German tourists who stayed there and I started talking to them. I admired how they travelled here and went out into the bush. At the time I had never been out of Windhoek; I had never been to Etosha or the North West. The tourists would share their stories and, for me, it was awesome. When I finished school, I got a bursary to study at the academy, which is now NUST. I stayed there for a year, before I got a bursary to study in Australia. I was going to study agriculture, but when I got there, I realised, “Oh, I
MYD: Maxi, who inspired and shaped you to become who you are today? ML: My mother was a great inspiration in my life because she was just this simple woman but she believed in humanity. I think that’s what made me want to become who I am. I thought about how to help other people and that was by using my education, getting into rural areas and inspiring other people and other young women that were my age. Also, I wanted to reach older people who thought that they had nothing in life, that they hadn’t become something. That has been my inspiration in life: humanity and caring for people. That’s why you must make sure that you educate yourself: to make a difference in somebody’s life. MYD: I have travelled with you into different areas in Namibia and been into communal conservancies with you,
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