WIS grade 7 students interviewed the Executive Director of Gobabeb

Gillian Maggs-Kölling

Recently our entire grade, 7th grade, went on our grade camping trip. On that trip, our group landed the opportunity to interview the Executive Director of Gobabeb, Ms. Gillian Maggs-Kölling. She stated that she has been working at Gobabeb for 15 years and has had lots of experience in science prior to coming to Gobabeb. She had worked in botany for many years before coming to Gobabeb and still gets to handle plants regularly. 

Ms. Gillian said she works at Gobabeb due to her love for science. She does many things at Gobabeb, such as management recruitment, getting funds, project concepts, project management, project approval, and resource management and allocation. She stated that often she is allowed to do small personal projects; typically she does ones that are plant-based. She said that her favorite part of her job is plant documentation. According to Ms. Gillian, getting funds is the hardest part of her job. The institute is not funded by the Namibian government, so they must secure funding from outside sources. Lots of companies donate to the institute, including some embassies, along with the German government. Before Ms. Gillian worked at Gobabeb, she worked at a botanical institute for 23 years. After leaving that job, she changed to forestry for 3 years, and then she began working at Gobabeb.  

When asked about what she loves about Gobabeb, Ms. Gillian said, “Gobabeb is a wonderful place that creates opportunities for schools to instill the love for the desert in the young.” By saying this quote, Ms. Gilligan Maggs-Kölling meant that Gobabeb is an astonishing place where schools can help their students develop a deeper understanding of the desert, its organisms, and the environment. This also tells us that the Gobabeb Institute provides a beautiful opportunity for education and an experience that encourages love and respect for the desert's extremely diverse ecosystem.  Gobabeb is quite proud of being known as both a learning environment for young students to first start learning about the desert and a place where young adults come to work on serious things like college degrees. Gobabeb is focused on having the goal of being a place to learn and explore the desert through science for a diverse age group and diverse level of science.

By Marina Haftvani, Lennard Quinger, Takudzawa Jantjies