01 Mar From Seashore to Store: Aisha’s Business Turning Seaweed into Valuable Products

Aisha Bakar Makungu, 29, sits with YCI volunteers to record a HerStory podcast episode about her journey as an entrepreneur.

Aisha Bakar Makungu, a 29-year-old HerStart Catalyst Fund recipient, grew up in Bweleo, a rural seaweed farming community in Zanzibar, Tanzania. YCI’s HerStart Innovate the Future program was an exciting opportunity for Aisha to use her skills to solve one of the most pressing issues facing youth in her community: unemployment. With encouragement from her family and support from the HerStart program, Aisha says she became much more confident and empowered to continue to grow her business. She is excited to impact the lives of people in her community by educating them on the valuable uses of seaweed and creating employment opportunities for youth. 

In Tanzania, where people under the age of 35 comprise 61% of the population, youth unemployment is a major challenge, especially for young women. Despite rapid improvements in education and increased economic growth, decent employment with the ability to alleviate poverty is not yet widely accessible. Women additionally face gendered obstacles to employment, including lower educational attainment, fewer available opportunities, and social norms that burden women with household duties and make work outside the home a challenge.

Statistics compiled by UNWomen on Zanzibar’s progress towards the SDGs also point to greater disadvantages for women, particularly young women, when it comes to economic and wellbeing outcomes. In Zanzibar, women are about twice as likely to be unemployed than men, more likely to be engaged in informal employment, and one in three women are married before the age of 18. These challenges compound to make women’s economic empowerment a major challenge in Zanzibar.

Youth unemployment in Tanzania is an issue with various drivers, including a lack of access to quality higher education and capital. The HerStart program seeks to combat these issues and increase employment opportunities for young women by giving them access to the skills and resources necessary to start and grow their own businesses and become self-employed.  

“HerStart helped me feel empowered. It helped me to become more confident and stand freely in front of people and talk about my business and the products I produce.”
– Aisha Bakar Makungu 

The HerStart program consists of three phases. First, the young women are trained in foundational entrepreneurship skills, financial management, personal leadership and social impact. Next, social enterprises are incubated with access to business development services, coaching and leadership training for entrepreneurs. After this, entrepreneurs can apply for the HerStart Catalyst Fund, where they can receive seed funding and business mentorship to help launch or scale businesses with measurable positive community impact. Through the HerStart training program, young women, like Aisha, are set up to successfully launch and grow a social enterprise. 

With the support of her family, Aisha took the opportunity to join the HerStart program and begin her journey as a social entrepreneur with the goal of becoming self-employed and one day employing other young people in her community. Before participating in HerStart, Aisha had never imagined that one day she would run her own business.

Since joining HerStart and completing the different phases of the program, Aisha began making products with seaweed and other natural and organic materials. Her exposure to seaweed farming from a young age helped her identify opportunities to make unique value-added agricultural products. This has allowed her to capitalize on seaweed, an abundant natural resource, to make her own products.  

Aisha received $2,000 through the Catalyst Fund to grow her enterprise, which she used to buy raw materials, register her business name, and pay for opportunities to promote her products, like hosting booths at markets. The regular coaching from HerStart staff and volunteers as well as mentorship from a local entrepreneur helped to improve her confidence in herself and her business abilities.  

Aisha reaches customers by advertising her products on social media and supplies them through different local shops and individual orders from customers in her community. By participating in the six-month Grow Your Social Venture phase of HerStart, Aisha said that she was able to increase her access to markets, expand her network and improve her financial literacy. By the end of the program, she was even able to save three million TSh (approximately $1700 CAD) to reinvest into her business.  

“The accomplishment that I’m proud of firstly, I know how to run the business. I also understand the difference between normal and social businesses. I’m so proud of owning my business which enables me to get a high income without depending on anyone and helping my family. That is what I am most proud of.“
– Aisha Bakar Makungu   

Aisha displays one of her products, a body scrub made with coffee and seaweed.

YCI’s HerStart program is helping to alleviate unemployment in Zanzibar by giving young women access to the skills and resources necessary to start their own social businesses. This gives young women, often at a disadvantage in the formal economy, the opportunity to gain a steady income through self-employment. Once their businesses are established, young women can hire other young people in their communities to help with business management, production and other activities.  

Aisha hopes to continue to grow her business by one day purchasing seaweed processing machines and employing youth from her community to help her with day-to-day business activities and production. By hiring young people, Aisha hopes to help alleviate the problem of youth unemployment in her community. She also hopes that by teaching young people about the value of seaweed, they can also produce their own products to sell.   

By supporting young women, HerStart contributes to achieving SDG 8, Decent Work and Economic Growth, which seeks to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth. Small businesses like Aisha’s support progress towards gender equality, creating decent jobs and improving living standards.

Curious about international volunteer opportunities with YCI? Learn more about YCI’s HerStart Fellowships for Canadians of all ages to contribute their skills and gain experience while collaborating with women and global partners to drive social entrepreneurship and gender equality.