Project Leaders
Volunteer Work with Desert Elephants in Namibia

Rachel Harris - Project Coordinator

Rachel, originally from the UK has spent the past 5 years in Events fundraising for a high profile charity in London, UK. In the main she organised overseas fundraising expeditions and has taken large groups of volunteers to Namibia, Ecuador, China, Brazil, Morocco and New Zealand. Through these trips she developed a passion for travel and a firm belief in sustainable tourism and the ability of individuals to make a huge difference through projects such as this one. Through expeditions and trips to Namibia she fell in love with the country where she now lives and co ordinates all the volunteers.

Johannes Haasbroek - Project Leader

Johannes hails originally from South Africa where he was raised with a close affinity with nature. He studied political science, development studies and anthropology, later moving on to nature conservation. Over the past 10 years he has worked in various parts of the conservation sphere in Southern Africa, from game reserve management, professional hunting, tour guiding, reserve development, anti poaching, guide training, rural development and more. Over the past six years he has been living in Namibia, first working with Save the Rhino Trust, developing systems to get conservation independent of outside funding. In this time he witnessed the expansion of the elephant populations into the south, and realized he should apply a multi-angled approach to help solve the problem. Hence the creation of the project. Between conservation work he runs an expedition company, and leads wilderness expeditions on foot in support of conservation projects.

Hendrick Munembome - Chief Tracker and Community Liaisons Officer

Hendrick joined the team in June 2008 and has brought with him a wealth of experience. He spent 13 years working for the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism and 3 years working with Operation Raleigh. During his time with the Ministry he covered many different areas of work including training with the Save the Rhino Trust and guiding and tracking elephants and lions in the Huab River area for a number of years. His knowledge and background makes him an integral part of the team and is vital to communications with the local communities and their understanding and cooperation to what the team is trying to do. When not working Hendrick spends his time on his goat farm amongst his family.

David Rowett - Operations Manager

Originally from Zimbabwe, David almost stumbled across his work with EHRA. An outdoor Jack of all trades, with an artist’s eye, David has brought his own creativity and commitment to the work of the project. He was seduced by the lifestyle and with the simplicity and directness with which EHRA addresses a very obvious problem – the need for water and the human / elephant conflict which arises from this. David has also worked closely with Ollie in trying to expand and develop other possibilities for EHRA’s future, which is currently a work in progress in the form of a “lodge” aimed at small groups with only a couple of nights available in the area.

Gerson Wilfrit Taniseb - Building Foreman

Gerson has been with the team since 2004. A local from Uis (about an hour from base camp), he is the power house behind the building week of the project. Gerson’s familiarity with many of the community members leads to a relaxed atmosphere at each build location. He is a real character and work horse and the build week would not go by without Gerson bringing his guitar along and strumming a few tunes to while away the evening around the campfire.