Social Entrepreneurs as a Catalyst for Change in Tanzania
Last weekend marked the beginning of a new direction in my career as a development professional. Under my new role as a Global Advocate Fellow for Mama Hope, I had the pleasure of speaking at the Global Advocate Soiree in San Francisco about the importance of partnership and creating space for global communities as catalysts of change.
For the next nine months, I’ll be working with Mama Hope and Anza in Moshi, Tanzania to help empower social entrepreneurs to make a sustainable impact in their community. Anza is an organization dedicated to providing social entrepreneurs in Tanzania with the training and resources they need to make a difference in their community through job creation and innovation. I have committed to raising $20,000 to support Anza Accelerator, an intensive and tailored program for businesses to build capacity and make a lasting impact on their community.
Getting Down to the ‘Why’
I’ve spent the past few years jumping between countries, languages, jobs and cultures- from South Africa to Istanbul. I’ve seen human rights violations in refugee camps and experienced the legacy of apartheid in South Africa’s townships. In each of these places, I met people with innovative ideas for systems change- those who understood that the status quo placed barriers for opportunity purely based on ethnicity, gender or place of birth. While countless programs and initiatives are in place to remove these barriers, efforts oftentimes fall short of expectations due to funding, misaligned priorities, or a failure to involve and give ownership to the communities themselves. More effort needs to be made to empower communities from within through a bottom-up approach.
This is why I firmly believe in the potential of Anza in improving the quality of life in Tanzania’s underserved communities. Anza believes that local entrepreneurs are the solution to Tanzania’s social, environmental and economic challenges. Anza trains social entrepreneurs with capacity building, access to capital and partnership opportunities. Empowering local entrepreneurs in Tanzania will promote jobs, improve the quality of life in underserved communities and combat numerous social and environmental challenges.
Why Tanzania?
Tanzania has one of the fastest growing populations in Africa, and its economy has been steadily growing over the past decade. However, Tanzania is still a very difficult place to start a business. The World Bank’s ease of doing business index ranked Tanzania 139th out of 189 countries.
In detail, Tanzania lacks many key ingredients needed for business growth, such as affordable capital, capacity building, and access to networks. Unemployment rates are high, and the community needs to create more than 850,000 new jobs every year to keep up with the new entrants to the job market. Tanzania also faces social and environmental challenges that affect significant portions of the population, including limited access to clean water, access to affordable & relevant healthcare and access to sustainable power.
This mix of characteristics results in low business growth and high levels of vulnerable employment (UNDP 2014). In 2012, Tanzania was home to more unemployed 15 to 24-year-olds per capita than 109 other countries (Restless Development 2012).
However, Tanzania has a plethora of small to medium-sized enterprises (SME’s). There are currently 2.7 million active SME’s in Tanzania, but 89% are informal, meaning they are not formally registered with Tanzania’s Business Registrations and Licensing Agency (BRELA) partly due to difficult registration processes and prohibitive registration taxes (International Development Research Centre 2015).
Anza’s Approach
Anza believes that local entrepreneurs are in the ideal position to identify innovative business solutions needed to tackle the social, economic and environmental problems that exist in their communities. Anza supports high potential entrepreneurs in Tanzania with training and services to strengthen business operations, increase profitability, and scale impact and job creation.
Anza’s core programming includes: The Anza Growth Fund, a flexible and affordable type of capital; The Kili Hub, Tanzania’s largest co-working space; and the Anza Accelerator, an 8-month tailored program that builds the capacity of entrepreneurs and businesses through strategic consulting and hands-on skills training. To promote wider participation, the Anza Accelerator offers reduced rates for entrepreneurs at $125/month, which is merely a third of the program’s entire cost.
To date, Anza has empowered more than 700 entrepreneurs, including training over 600 startup entrepreneurs in agriculture, education, affordable housing, health, renewable energy and more.
Let’s Make a Change, Together
For the next nine months, I’ll be writing about my progress and sharing real stories of Tanzania’s social entrepreneurs and the changes they’re making in their communities. If you’re interested in getting involved, making a donation or learning more, visit my fundraising page or follow me on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn. Feel free to write me an email as well at sgem14@gmail.com.
With your help, we can make a difference. We have the chance to help entrepreneurs transform Tanzania. 100% of the donations raised will go directly to helping Tanzanian social entrepreneurs gain the training and resources they need to make an impact in their community.
It sounds like a big challenge, and yes, it definitely is! But I firmly believe that every person on the planet should have the opportunity to nurture their ambitions regardless of the circumstances they were born into. My mission is to create a network of partners, knowledge, innovators and listeners to help others rise above these challenges. Together, we have the chance to help foster these dreams and remove the arbitrary boundaries of opportunity for many Tanzanians.
Thanks for your interest and kindness! Merci beaucoup! Vielen Dank! Çok teşekkürler!
P.S — If anyone happens to be fluent in Swahili, I’m more than grateful for tips or tools. (You’ll have some funny blog posts to look forward to there…)
-Sarah
Useful links:
Mama Hope & the Global Advocate Program
Various forms of my social media for your enjoyment— Facebook, Instagram & LinkedIn.
