Okavango Community Trust (OCT) is a community based organization (CBO) for the villages of Seronga, Gunotsoga, Ereetsha, Beetsha and Gudigwa located in the Okavango eastern Panhandle of the Okavango Delta. OCT was established in 1995 and was legally registered in 1996 and has been allocated tourism concession areas in photographic tourism.
The population of the OCT catchment area is approximately 8000 people with Seronga as the largest population center (2674 people). The people are largely agrarian, keeping small number of livestock and practicing flood recession farming. Fishing is also a significant livelihood as well as harvesting of aquatic and veld resources. Unemployment remains high, especially for youth, education was literally the local students doesn’t perform well on their Junior Certificate examinations, the only secondary school being Ngambao JSS located in Seronga. Human wildlife conflict is rampant in the area and contributes to increasing poverty levels in the area.
OCT is strategically positioned to drive the socio-economic development of the area, if and only if, the leadership of the Organization has capacity to make strategic decisions and deliver on them. Over the past fifteen years, OCT has been able to raise significant amounts of money from its tourism enterprises; however, corporate social responsibility has been a challenge to service the young and old community members. It is therefore envisaged that with partnership from prominent educators with relevant qualified and experienced specialists as well as targeted exposure, OCT will be able to deliver competent leaders of tomorrow which may spearhead the much needed socio-economic development in the area.