ZAPHA+

Next Saturday (November 15), Catherine and I will be helping the members at ZAPHA+ (Zanzibar Association of People living with HIV/AIDS) to run an openhouse to help promote the organization as well as their income generation program.

One of the programs offered through ZAPHA+ is income generation. ZAPHA+ really focuses on trying to improve and increase a positive living standarad among people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Through income generation, PLWHA's are given the opportunity to learn new skills and tools to help them develop their own businesses in the future in order to increase their personal income. The most developed products are their hand-made scented soaps. They sell to local tourist shops, hotels, and resturants in Stonetown and in a few weeks, they will be attending the International Trade Fair taking place in Rwanda. They haven't had much training in marketing and advertising, but want to be able to expand their market internationally one day. In the past, members of ZAPHA+ involved with soap-making have held exhibitions or events in Stonetown setting up booths in the market to help promote their products. However, recently, there has been little work put into marketing their products.

The feeling I get from the group is a lack of motivation, direction, and initiative. Some members expressed the frustration of only seeing little payback from selling their products, so they don't see how it is beneficial for them to put in so much effort into an event to promote their products. Our hope is that by organizing this openhouse and creating a portolio on how to run an event, this will become something that they will continue to use once we leave. We feel that there is great potential for their products if only they could take more initiative.

This week Catherine and I will be putting together brochures and posters to advertise for our openhouse. Already it has been a challenge just to get information from the group about their soaps, finding out if we can get a permit for the location of our event, as well as what the budget will be to have the culinary group at ZAPHA+ cater the event. There seems to be no sense of urgency to have things organized well in advance and a lack of accountability. This is one thing that can be challenging when working with the people here and trying to make progress on a project. Things are just done on its own time.