January 2012 I, Sylvie Sprangers, visited the projects of
Zanzibits, on Zanzibar, for the second time. During the visit I met and spoke with
Salama, the manager of Zanzibits. After an interesting discussing about
the project and the challenges they face she showed me around and
introduced me to Abdulrahman, better known as Bobman, who runs the “job
bank” the project that started in 2011 and is financed by the MvRF. The
job bank was the main focus of the visit. By the time of the visit the
office was just taken into use, with two computers for the students to
work on and Abdulrahman, responsible for the daily activities at the job
bank . One of his task is making companies aware of the new job bank
and its services. At the time of the visit he was busy making contact
with Zanzibar companies and had just secured a good number of
internships for the students at Zanzibar’s famous musical festival Sauti
za Basura. He was also busy with setting up different activities to
help students . For example to help them how to write a cv and
application letter. The website will also play an important role and was
almost finished. The website will make it possible for companies to
place job openings at their company and for students to place their
CV’s.
Besides the visit to the job bank I also visited the other projects of
Zanzibits. It was the start of a new year and thus a fresh start at
Zanzibits. At alryami bits a new group of children just started class. A
new group of students also just started the introduction course.
It was again an interesting and positive visit, Zanzibits continues to
grow and improve itself. Salama and Abdulrahman have shown me again that
they are working on an interesting and successful initiative that
continues to improve itself and is looking for ways to improve and
become more independent. They are for example busy with setting up
computer courses for outsiders, this will provide Zanzibits with income
that will make them more independent in the future.