The Seaweed center project in Zanzibar, Tanzania was initiated by the CSE Class of 2010 as an expansion of the Insert Africa project. Insert Africa was founded in October 2006 by CSE students at Chalmers. The initial project resulted in the construction of a building in the village Bubulo in Uganda that was powered by renewable energy in the form of solar panels, and was appropriately named “The Lighthouse”. The Lighthouse became a true success story and has today, because of its reliable source of electricity, become a meeting point where work can be performed in late evenings, conferences can be held and cell phones can be charged. The Lighthouse has grown into a creative center for knowledge diffusion and small entrepreneurship.
Zanzibar is a very low developed country where over 50 percent of the population lives below the basic needs poverty line. The objective of the project carried out by the class of CSE 2010 has been to create working opportunities for the women Seaweed farmers, to make them independent and also improve the economic and social welfare for entire Zanzibar. This has been done through the creation of a manufacturing facility for soap and through education in entrepreneurship for the women.
The overall objective of this ICM school project is to continue the work of developing a long‐term collaboration between CSE/ICM, the University of Dar es Salaam and the Zanzibar Folk School in the developing nation Tanzania. This will be done by further development of the Seaweed center project by building a sustainable business model around the Seaweed Center’s manufacturing of soap, as well as increasing the scope of the project. The business model work will include securing a revenue stream by developing a logistics structure with distribution and sales, and to get the operation of the manufacturing facility running by for example securing the supply of material to the soap and creating a payment system for the women using the drying facilities of the center.
The project has already been initiated and has been successfully carried out during the autumn of 2009. During September 2010 a trip to Zanzibar will take part where the class of ICM 2011 will continue the work done by CSE 2010 of spreading knowledge about basic methods of how to efficient run businesses from a social‐responsible perspective. The learning will appear from seminars and workshops with focus on the areas such as entrepreneurship, sustainable business development and marketing & sales. Various fundraising and revenue bringing activities will be conducted by the project members whom works free of charge with this project and the total turnover of this project is estimated to reach approximately 850 000 SEK.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Matthew Atkins; I work for the Seaweed Industry Association, a nonprofit interested in building networks of seaweed farmers and expanding the capacity of small-scale producers. I'll be visiting Zanzibar in a few weeks and would very much like to visit the Seaweed Center. Our organization is also interested in the possibility of setting up a direct trade agreement to offer the Center's soaps at stores in the US. I've e-mailed several of the admins already, but I'd love to hear more: matthew.atkins@seaweedindustry.org. Thanks!
Matthew