PROJECT : SELF EMPLOYMENT AND ENTREPRENUERSHIP (Training and Support)

Under this Project we have the following ventures.

• TUNGUU AGRICULTURAL TRAINING CENTRE (TATC)

ZAYEDESA owns a 62 acres farm land at Tunguu, and has turned this farm into a youth vocational training centre where young men and women could learn various skills such as agriculture, forestry, livestock keeping and husbandry, bee hive keeping, mushroom farming and other nature oriented activities in an environmental friendly approach.

a) Agriculture
This program takes youth groups chosen from various farming districts through the community leaders, and are taught agricultural and animal husbandry activities by using environmental friendly organic methods. The produce they cultivate is sold and the income saved and used as seed money for them after completion to begin their own farming activities.

b) Livestock and Poultry Keeping
The farm breeds and sells chicken and eggs for sustainability. With help from the Chinese Consulate here in Zanzibar ZAYEDESA has acquired a poultry incubator which has a capacity of 3,000 eggs and will soon start producing day old chicks. Market prospects for poultry products are excellent as the demand has been growing at an increasing pace in Zanzibar. The farm has validated the concept that young people, if given access to the right resources and knowledge, can effectively craft their own advancement opportunities of our students have successfully begun their own farming activities or have improved their previous farms by utilising acquired knowledge from the training.

c) Pemba Aqua Culture Programme ( PACP)
In collaboration with Marine and Coastal Environment Management Project (MACEMP), under the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Environment, ZAYEDESA supported women cooperative groups in training and acquiring equipment and access to financial help in order to provide modern and environmental friendly methods of shellfish culture and fishing. This is a lucrative and a very common income generating activity with women.

d) Handicrafts
This programme had been started in the year 2002, by sending groups of young unemployed women to the Bagamoyo Arts and Handicrafts School to learn and enhance their skills. After completion these women were formed into cooperative groups which were referred to the Zanzibar Social Security Funds for financial assistance to establish their new trade.

Other cooperative groups have also likewise benefited from other schemes of assistance in equipment (sewing machines etc) and funds from ZAYEDESA