Aya aye cap'n! - Johanna Kwedhi, Namibia's first female trawler captain.

Johanna is Namibia's first female trawler captain. She trained with the Namibian Maritime Fisheries Institute and became skipper after eight years service as an officer and chief mate. Now in command of a crew of 23, she finds that men are not used to a woman at the wheel. Namibia signed up to the Millennium Development Goals that aim to cut poverty by half in 2015. These goals include specific targets for women - on education, reproductive health and equality. Johanna is an example of targets fulfilled -- but back home, how about her friends and relatives?

‘Trawler Girl’, the latest in the ‘Life on the Edge’ film series looks at Namibia’s progress on meeting its MDGs promises to women - through the eyes of the country’s first female trawler captain.

Slight, pretty, sharp-eyed, and determined, Johanna Kwedhi is in charge of a crew of 23 fishermen. Out at sea, she runs the show. But it’s not so long since Johanna was living in a shantytown on the outskirts of the Namibian port city Luderitz, with no running water - a girl from the villages who used to walk 14 kilometres every day to school.

For ‘Trawler Girl’, the programme took Johanna and her 14-month old son Innocent on a 1,500 kilometre trip back home to the north of the country to find out what the prospects for women are here today. Are other girls now seizing the chances Johanna once took to break with tradition and forge their own careers? What’s happening to Namibia’s MDG promises to cut maternal mortality and empower women? And what does this mean for Namibia’s boys?

Trawler Girl was a film made by tve - tve works with partners worldwide to make films which inspire change.
 
COMMENTARY transcript from the video:


We’re close to Namibia’s Skeleton Coast. We’re at the edge of the Namib Desert, on Africa’s south west coast. A world of drought, danger, shipwreck. But also… fish!

Luderitz Harbour – an old port rebuilt for fishing boats. The industry is one of the pillars of Namibia’s economy. It’s a man’s world. Almost eight out of ten fishery workers are men. Women allowed on these great Atlantic trawlers normally only as visitors - maybe taking a turn at the wheel. Johanna Kwedhi is going aboard the Kanus, one of the fleet’s largest vessels. Except, Johanna is not coming on board as a guest… Johanna is Namibia’s first female trawler skipper.

JOHANNA:

As Captain, I normally work on standby for 24 hours. I wake up at about six o’clock. We are having six hours shifts. At the bridge we are three. Me as the Captain. A Chief Mate and a second mate.

COMM:

Men are not used to a woman at the wheel. Women don’t normally chart the course – literally or metaphorically. Or give orders... however pleasantly. And the crew knows their lives are in her hands.

"tve works with partners worldwide to make films that inspire change"