Underway
Zanzibar - Island of Change
The new female face of Zanzibar
Africa is a continent of hope and has been a priority of the international community – even before the last G8 summit. Nevertheless, interest and support of this region is off to a late start. In particular, the youth of Africa are not absorbed economically and socially and without future perspectives, the young generations will fall victim to resignation and will jeopardize the stability of the region.
“Our youth has many problems, they are restless and have been thrown off track,” explained Shadya Amani Karume, the wife of the president and founder of the women’s organization Zayedesa, during a meeting with Women without Borders in Zanzibar in June 2007.
The youth must be supported and encouraged in order to stand up for their nations and to actively look for opportunities. Sports have the potential to motivate young people and to strengthen their self-confidence and self-esteem.
The “Train-the-Trainer” swim course is conducted in cooperation with professional swim trainers from the Austrian Coast Guard. Through the course, body-consciousness will be facilitated and, in addition, the training units provide an ideal background for heath and awareness workshops focused on strengthening HIV-AIDS awareness and hygiene- and environment consciousness.
Female and male students will be trained in "Fair Share" Teamshaping and gender cooperation workshops. These transformative workshops will provide them with practical life skills so that women can fulfil their necessary ambitions for both personal and social benefit and men can escape the limiting cultural pressures on their own lives.
The assembly of the swim club and the casual training session are not only a valuable contribution to the lifestyles of the youth; for the first time in their lives, they will experience through team training and persistence that they can demonstrate and prove that they can achieve a goal. This is the first step towards a self-determined life.
In addition to that we will organise health and environment awareness workshops for women as well as "Fair Share" Teamshaping workshops for female and male students.
A local team will conduct the filming of the project for a documentary. Through this, it is anticipated that the idea will be implemented in other African countries.
The project is funded by the Federal Chancellery of Austria- Sport Section, the OPEC Fund and the McCaw Foundation.
Please click here to read a reportage by Edit Schlaffer, who was in Tanzania and Zanzibar in June, 2007. “Success: Made in Africa?”was printed in the weekly Die Furche.
We cordially thank Hervis Sports for providing us with swim outfits for the women in Zanzibar, Lufthansa Austria for flight sponsoring as well as BTU Travel for their kind support.
If you would like to support this project, please send donations to:
Frauen ohne Grenzen, BACA BLZ 12.000, Account No. 52085371 104, Sansibar
