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The Zanzibar Women Corporation (ZAWCO)

The Zanzibar Women Corporation was first organized in 1992. The chief environmental education officer of the Department of Environment of Zanzibar, Shara Khamis, realized there was a need for a non-governmental organization to reach out to the women of remote Zanzibar villages to help them solve the environmental and economic problems they faced. It was not that the government was indifferent to these problems. Rather it was that a non-governmental organization would be able to effectively adjust its priorities to these needs, village by village, so that human and financial resources could be specifically targeted to make a difference.

First Actions: Clean Water and Safe Waste Disposal

The organization began its work by sending teams out to the villages where they found that the wellbeing of the children and women was frequently undermined by poor water quality and inadequate disposal of human waste. The leaders of ZAWCO worked in partnership with the village women to developed ways to use modest resources in an efficient and focused way to make changes that would have significant consequences.

Helping villagers dig wells for clean and less salty water and moving human waste disposal area away from where children played and worked remains one major project areas for ZAWCO.

Present Goals and Five Action Areas for ZAWCO

The practical work of ZAWCO in the villages naturally led to new goals and an increasing range of activities for the organization. ZAWCO now develops projects to achieve five goals for women and their children.

1. Health improvement through village water and waste management projects. ZAWCO continues to organize women in villages of Zanzibar to make needs assessments, set priorities, and carry out projects which utilize well digging, constructing inter-village pipe and pumping systems, and latrine digging.
   
   
2. Financial security through women’s small business enterprise development. ZAWCO provides capital and loans for the creation of small businesses owned and operated by women’s groups. Sewing machines and beehives have been provided to groups starting small profit-making enterprises around them. Seedlings have been purchased for other groups for the establishment of nursery businesses.
   
   
3. Better business management through training for women.  ZAWCO conducts workshops and retreats to provide the training women need to succeed at their business activities. Topics studied include marketing, distribution, procurement, and bookkeeping.
   
   
4. Greater problem solving and planning capabilities through education for women in environment, conservation, gender issues, economics, and health. ZAWCO, both independently and in cooperation with other organizations concerned with conservation and development, mounts educational events, conferences, and retreats devoted to education and information around important social issues and secures the participation of women in these events.
   
   
5. Enhanced public health and quality of life through education in prevention, treatment, and tolerance related to HIV infection and AIDS. While Zanzibar is not one of the most severely HIV infected regions in Africa, ZAWCO has joined other Zanzibar organizations recognizing the current danger to public health and individual wellbeing and works with them to educate the public on all aspects of the HIV-AIDS epidemic.

The Bungi Garden and Nursery:  A new business development in Unguja.

The Bungi Garden and Nursery is an exciting new women’s enterprise with the World in Harmony Foundation providing the launching funds.

The nursery is located in a rural area near the center of Unguja, the southern and most familiar island of Zanzibar.   The nursery is providing plants for sale to hotels and private homes in Zanzibar Town and the other tourist areas. 

A chicken growing facility is under construction and will be completed soon.  The main brooder building will have its roof completed in August, 2008, and the fencing will be in place shortly after that.  The facility will be able to handle several hundred chickens at a time, and provide significant income to the women in the collective.

This is an outstanding example of the initiative of women and what they can accomplish with our support.

The Organizational Structure of ZAWCO

The lead chapters of ZAWCO are in the two main towns, Zanzibar Town in the island of Unguja and Chake Chake in the island of Pemba. The women who serve in these chapters are volunteers and all have other professional responsibilities. These have permanent steering committees of approximately 12 leaders each. They staff their offices on a voluntary basis.

The Unguja chapter is a member of ANGOZA, the Association of Non-Governmental Organizations of Zanzibar, and has an office in the ANGOZA building. Membership in this association allows ZAWCO use of space at the ANGOZA center for workshops and public education activities.

Collateral Benefits of ZAWCO Activism

Groups of women in villages, coming together out of concern for their health and the health of their children, or ready to begin enterprise groups, become local affiliates of ZAWCO with specific purposes and goals. This network of focused action groups is growing into an effective force seeking the improvement of the situation of women and the society as a whole.

Through their work, women in the villages more deeply appreciate the skills needed for good project design and planning. This intensifies their appreciation of the reasons to keep their girls in school, learning to read, write, and calculate more ably. Through these decentralized women’s organizations, supported by strong chapters providing leadership from the towns, the problems, common to much of Africa, concerning girls’ access to education are being addressed.