Kawa Training Center is committed to do whatever it can to create awareness about the value of our environmental heritage and to activate as many people as possible to protect it.
Download our project planning, achievements and budget needs here
Kawa Environment Club
Protecting the environment has always been a pillar of Kawa Foundation since its start in 2010. We’ve started regular beach clean ups 7 years ago, intensified into monthly clean-ups in 2018 and in May 2022 we started with daily clean ups. Next to cleaner beaches it led to great spin offs and initiatives.
We feel the need to continue this program and activities since they are paramount for the future of Zanzibar. We need to keep combatting waste pollution for the sake of the environment of the island, the livelihood of its inhabitants and not to forget to keep our island attractive to tourists.
The project in Stonetown is on its way to financial independence and can easily be upscaled and replicated to any other accessible beach in the area. We are training people to do so and are herewith building on job creation.
The students will be equipped with environmental knowledge, beach clean-up experience, they can make, promote and sell products out of waste, teach, take care of and motivate others about the environment and create a livelihood out of cleaning and protecting the environment.
By supporting this project you will be part of the growing force.
The main focus for now is to complete the budgets for: environmental education, Stonetown South beach clean-up project, waste separation and upcycling.
Following we will continue with the remaining activities: awareness creation, plastic use reduction, alternatives to plastic, polystyrene and safe swimming project.
Let’s work together towards a Green Economy in Zanzibar
Fighting Marine litter in Zanzibar
Read here the report Fighting Marine litter in Zanzibar
– How waste management can be improved through a community-driven approach-
by Sara Rydbeck, MSc Marine biology and Elisabeth Lundsør, PhD Marine biology
Environment Waste Pickers Re-cyclers and Upcyclers Conference 2023
organised this conference to increase the impact of environmental organisatiotion that are active in cleaning the environment, recycling and up-cycling (government as well as private institutions) to give everyone an opportunity to learn more about each organisations achievements, goals and challenges but also with the aim to find ways forward together to sustainable solutions to Zanzibar’s growing waste problem.
Watch the video
Some achievements:
Achievements 2022-2023 (up to now)
Awareness
- 100 students gained knowledge on and are active in protecting the environment
- Organized events for World Environment Day, World Ocean Day and World Clean-up day
- 60 students were trained in Environment and 60 students participated in Environment Cases
- Development of the Environment Tour – visiting the cleaning sites, participate in cleaning activities with the students, Workshop and Kawa Training Center visit.
- Engaged communities by organizing monthly power clean ups.
- Further developed the full circular curriculum about environment.
Clean-ups
- 10 Community Beach clean-ups with an average of 60 participants, approximately 1.000 kg of waste collected per clean-up
- 60 students participated in daily clean-ups before school from Mizingani beach to Maisara beach, collecting an average of 300 kg per day.
Waste separation
- We have set up 5 waste separation stations (at Tembo, Travellers, Africa house, Maisara and at Kilimani Chini) and a bottle collection at Forodhani beach side. the station at travellers washed away during very high tide and storm, but the rest is working well.
- Placed a plastic bottle fish at Mizingani beach, Africa House and at Maisara.
- 8 dustbins placed along Forodhani beach
- Set up a composting station at Maisara and we pick up waste daily from several restaurants in Stonetown with bicycles and cart.
- Supplied the Mkunazini neighbourhood with dustbins with Go for Zanzibar NGO and sheha of Kiponda
Partnerships
- Strengthened partnerships with Zanzibar Environmental Management Authority, Ministry of Tourism, United Nations Zanzibar, Zanzibar Municipal Council and the shehia of Shangani, Mkunazini, Hurumzi and Kiponda and, Mizingani beach cleaners and Forodha Mchanga Beach group, Go for Zanzibar NGO, Africraft Tanzania
- At the beach now we get quite a lot of cooperation from the prison island captains and they are cleaning parts of the beach now
- Created more partnerships through Environment Club network meetings; with Scandinavian Marine Biologists, with the hotels on the beach front in Stonetown,
Reduction of waste efforts
- Maintained the drinking water refill station at Bluebikes and Cafe Blue and prepared a bike trailer for transportation of refill bottles
Upcycling of waste
- 60 students participated in the upcycling skills program and learned how to make earrings, keyrings and notice board, doormats from flipflops, they learned how to make rope from fabric found on the beach, dustbins, plant hangers, piggybanks from bottles, bracelets from straws and much more/
- Set up an up-cycling centre and up-cycle waste. We have rented a work shop and product display space, we purchased tools, sewing machine and workshop and shop furniture.
Tree planting
- Planted at least 12.000 Mangrove Seedlings and 700 trees at the homes of the students, 10 trees per student
- Launched a new project to create a buffer zone between Masingini Forest and the residential area in order to protect the forest and create awareness about the importance of trees. We already purchased 1.5 hectare land and planted 150 trees. The project is funded by TUI Care Foundation and private donors and additional funding is needed.
Capacity building
- Built capacity of Kawa Environment Club members and focused on the Environment group leaders development
- Students developed and implement environmental projects
- The projects were – Polystyrene, Water refill, Tree planting and Cigarette butts
Visibility
- increased visibility of Kawa Environment club
- A web-documentary was made about the Environment club by Heart Squad France: https://youtu.be/wsKnghQG_yI?si=eylDeeLyckZ1_Cj-
- 50 minute documentary is being produced at this moment by a French TV crew
Upcycling
- With the polystyrene project we are now making swimming noodles from polystyrene found on the beach, and we produced a song about polystyrene and now we are editing the video clip and hope to reach many people this way. We are looking for funding to further develop this project
- We have hired 3 young boys who want to study in the next course so they are working full time for the environment club and getting 1/3 of their wages paid in cash and 2/3 is going towards their school fees.
- The upcycling workshop has a manager who takes care of the production and the quality of the products and the promotion and sales.
- An art and craft teacher teaches the students and helps to develop new products.
- We do daily clean up events
- Recycle all our waste
- Reduce plastic waste
- We are developing a tree planting project where all students have to plant and care for ten trees is they want to study at Kawa Training Center
- We have integrated the clean ups in our curriculum
- We started with Environment classes
- We have established the Kawa Environment Club that is open to everyone, please contact us for more information if you want to join the Club.
Beach clean ups
The idea is to clean the same area every time and hopefully increase the number of participants and the kilos of rubbish collected and increase the area that is cleaned due to less rubbish.
We had the momentum going and even managed to activate the fishermen and boat builders but then Covid-19 hit, and we had to stop the activities in March, and we resumed them again in July. We are now measuring the weight and recording the findings .
Currently are in the process of putting signs up in the area and we want to raise money to put dustbins in the area.
We want this to a model for other organizations so every organization can take a part of the island to work on.
We realized the in spite of heavy lobbying we did not get many participants from outside; therefore we have decided to do the clean-up during the week hours so that students don’t need to come all the way to town on their free Saturday. So that means that beach clean-ups are now included in our curriculum. After the beach clean-up students engage in a program that is all about the environment with guest lectures, debates, discussions, watching documentaries etc.
We have bags that we use for the clean-ups that we recycle but they do not last very long and currently we are developing even more durable bags that can be used over and over again.
Waste separation system
We have different bins at Kawa to separate the waste as well as at Bluebikes and Café Blue, we would like to take it one step further to put waste bins outside and collect separated waste of the neighbourhood. We will need to do an awareness campaign in the neighbourhood. Some waste is worth money and that could be used to improve the neighbourhood. This model could be repeated in the areas where the students live.
With the compost and plants generated from the organic waste we can make vertical hanging gardens and sell this to people in Stone town to keep on their balconies.
Eliminate plastic bottles
We have a water filter at Kawa and at Café Blue, students and neighbours and tourist etc. are welcome to fill up their own water bottles for free. We also have drop water in the recyclable big 12l bottles. People can fill their own bottle and it will cost less than a bottle of water from the shop.
We also wanted to provide the students with aluminium bottles that they can take everywhere with them. This will create more visibility for the project.
Environment curriculum
We have been teaching about environment on different levels. Our aim is to develop a full circular curriculum about environment. From Foundation level all the way to teacher training so that teachers can teach the foundation level and at other schools in Zanzibar. Students will be encouraged to take an active role in the Kawa environment club committee, make art from trash, do their bit at home, start their own clean up events and environmental campaigns and finally become teachers who will take on the environment classes.
Some of the topics are: Awareness about the environment, what can I do, The RRR, Refuse, Reduce, Recycling, different , kinds of pollution, how to save the planet brainstorm, work out ideas, contest, up cycling, up cycling Ideas , entrepreneurial skills, organizing a beach clean-up, the initiatives, teaching about the environment, further studies.
We are working together with Stars@Zanzibar Sustainable to develop an Environment curriculum
Kawa Environment Club Membership
With the aim to make the students more aware of their contribution to the environment and to engage them to the club even after they are finished. We have developed membership stamp cards, every time they participate in a clean-up, they will get a stamp. After the card is full, they receive a certain rank e.g. environmental warrior bronze level etc.
Visibility
We have a Kawa Environment Facebook page with currently 1200 likes; and it is still growing. our aim is 5000 by the end of 2021. We have created a WhatsApp group. We have T-shirts with the logos of the participating organizations and the leaders wear yellow safety vests which look really good as well and we have bags that we use for the clean-ups that we recycle and currently we are developing even more durable bags that can be used over and over again.
