Priorities for Next Quarter January 1 – March 31, 2009
3 m to the
surface
30 m 2m
20 m
3m 5m
50 kg concrete
anchors
Underwater long line established at Bweleo Pearl farming and shell polishing business development
Safia Hashim of Bweleo who was nominated by the Zanzibar Chamber of Commerce and applied for the Believe, Begin, Become entrepreneurship program run by Google,
TechnoServe and the University of Dar es Salaam Entrepreneurship Center UDEC -
www.believe-begin-become.comtanzania and aided by the SUCCESS Program was
selected among 80 nominees and provided with a first phase of training in business development in November 2008 and a second phase in December 2008. Safia was then short-
listed from 150 individuals from the original 700 submissions to write a full proposal. Her proposal was again short-listed to a second group of 60 who earned US5,000 in bonds. Safia
will use the bonds to attend a local training institution that will help her to both assess and improve her project proposal. SUCCESS is helping Safia with selecting the right topic and
the right training institution. Safia’s proposal seeks a loan of US 100,000 to expand her pearl farming and shell polishing business, to develop a shop for the women’s
farmingjewelry-making group in Bweleo, and to provide start-up capital to set the pearls in high quality silver and gold settings for high end marketing.
In another development, Safia and another member from Bweleo Ms Aisha Bakari have also registered on the Business Development Gateway BDG Program. The competition
provides 1 million Tsh US 750 per member in each stage of training and business development. Safia is developing a pearl farming and shell polishing business while Aisha is
developing a seaweed soap and medicinal seaweed body oil business.
Registration of Cooperatives
The three villages of Bweleo, Fumba and Nyamanzi have drawn up constitutions for business cooperatives. These were submitted to the registrar of cooperatives for formal registration
and are in the final stages of completion, awaiting only the signature of the registrar.
19
Publications The guide to milkfish farming in the Western Indian Ocean Region that was published in
December, 2008 was made available this reporting period at
www.wiomsa.org ,
www.crc.uri.edu and
www.ims.udsm.ac.tz . The publication’s availability was also
announced on the regional mariculuture forum website. At their own initiative, the Tanzania Department of Fisheries is translating the manual into Swahili.
Leveraged Funding
The ReCoMaP pearl farming project provided funding for Simon Ellis, a pearl farming expert based in Micronesia and affiliated with the University of Hawaii at Hilo, to visit
Tanzania where he provided exceptional practical and technical advice on improving pearl farming practices. The total leveraged funding was US7,736. Also, SIDA provided
WIOMSA with US4,176 in funding for publication of the milkfish farming guide.