Africa
Housing Scheme in Zanzibar
The first housing scheme funded through Tanzania Gatsby Trust (TGT) is in Chaani Masingi, a village in northern Zanzibar. The origins of the housing estate date back to 2002 when TGT and the College of Engineering and Technology (CoET) joined forces to construct low-cost houses. The Habitat for Humanity (HFHT) was brought in as a collaborator, having worked on other housing schemes in Zanzibar.
Families live in traditional mud huts, which are made of wooden frames covered with mud, have thatch style roofs and bare earth floors. The major problem with these structures is that the roofs leak leaving pools of water inside the house, which in turn attracts mosquitoes. Large families live in this small construction causing health and safety risks, especially from ticks and insects that live in the mud walls and earthen floors. The roofs are expensive to maintain as they need to be repaired every six months.
The new houses are simple in design consisting of two or three rooms and are built with brick walls, sand/cement blocks or stabilised soil. They have sand cement block walls, stone foundations and corrugated iron sheet roofs and are large enough to house families of between six and ten. The houses also include a latrine. Since 2006, 10 of these houses have been in use in Zanzibar.
TGT chose beneficiaries from members if its women’s group who supported themselves making pottery and breeding chickens. A loan was set up to finance the construction of new houses and the women paid the loan from selling their pottery and eggs at the local market.
Today, the women have to purchase the materials for construction before applying for a loan. The financial support comes from TGT and the labour and supervision is supplied by HFHT. The women who belong to the group all build the houses together. Once the first structure has been built they can then buy the materials to extend the house with another two rooms, although the women would now like an extra room for receiving visitors. There are currently 74 applications waiting for funding on this scheme
Although this is a very successful project, it is increasingly more difficult to sell the quantities of pottery, chickens and eggs to make enough profit to pay for schooling and new housing. Some of the chickens have contracted a disease, which if it spreads, could potentially wipe out the whole poultry farm. The chicken sheds have doors that can be locked but there is no fencing or gates. Funding is necessary to build an enclosed compound to secure the area and prevent anyone from stealing the chickens and eggs. It is also necessary for the women to find another source of income and TGT has suggested they buy cattle to breed and produce milk to help with this problem.