Featured Staff – Gebhardt Nikanor Education Officer – Livestock Guarding Dog Program

Gebhardt, or “Gebs” for short, was born and grew up in Windhoek, where he lived for much of his life. He now lives in Otjiwarango with his ten-year-old son. In his free time, Gebs enjoys watching classic movies, particularly those about the wild west. After graduating high school, Gebs worked with a friend on an environmental education project, through which they would perform plays to educate students throughout Namibia on environmental issues. Gebs enjoyed performing and using drama and humor to gain students’ attention, interest, and passion. After the project, Gebs’ friend began to work at CCF. A year or two later, this friend contacted him and told Gebs that there was a vacancy at CCF.

Gebs applied and was accepted for a job in the education department. He was perfect for the job because his previous project was education-focused. During the period of time between the project and job at CCF, Gebs was working as a safari guide at a lodge in southern Namibia. He has always loved animals, a passion which was sparked when he watched wildlife programs on television as he was growing up. Though he enjoyed aspects of his job as a safari guide, Gebs wanted to do more work with animals. He found the job in CCF’s education department provided this opportunity because he was able to help save an animal he cared about.

Most of Gebs’ job in the education department involved outreach. He traveled to schools and presented to students at assembly programs. One of the things he talked about during these presentations was CCF’s livestock guarding dog program. In addition to speaking about it, Gebs also occasionally helped out with the dog program by traveling to farms and placing dogs or doing visits to check on the livestock guarding dogs. After a few years of education outreach, Gebs needed a new challenge and moved to the position of Livestock Guarding Dog Education Officer, which he has now done for about ten years. In this position, he travels all around Namibia to place livestock guarding dog puppies at farms and to check on about six placed dogs per week. His favorite parts of the position are having the opportunity to see different parts of Namibia and getting to see dogs who are performing well with happy farmers.