Zanzibar surprises Africa by recruiting young female tour guides despite cultural restrictions

Being a staunch Muslim precinct and an area strict on culture, females should be the last thing one expects to see in Zanzibar.

But against these odds, Zanzibar is about to make history; the Isles alone will be the first country on the continent to record the highest number of female tour guides.

Lady tour guides are never easy to find in Tanzania.

In fact, they are scarce throughout East Africa.

Even in Arusha, which is a more cosmopolitan city in Tanzania, boasting a long history of tourism activities and vast experiences of locals mingling with foreigners, there are still less than 20 female tour guides.

It thus came in as surprise to find a new wave of young girls aspiring to take onto the male dominated industry on Zanzibar Islands.

These new recruits have taken the step further by even joining serious safari guiding training to that effect, courtesy of the TUI care Foundation.

In partnership with Kawa Training Center operating at Stone Town in Unguja, the TUI Care programs has managed to recruit various young girls in the isles for training sessions.

Many of the girls in Zanzibar have already many have taken up tour guiding courses and English to supplement their future careers.

“I intend to complete the course in 2020 and become a fully-fledged tour guide for stone town,” said Swaumu Hassan (22) who previously flirted with journalism, but her parents did not like it much, so she switched to tourism through Kawa training.

Saida Malik is 26 and already taken up tour guiding career with ‘Colours of Zanzibar,’ she started off with learning English because most tourists who visit the isles are foreigners.

“Here in Zanzibar the most important skill is swimming, diving and water rescue knowledge, because tourism here involves walking around the stone town or taking visitors on boat trips,” she said.

Ahlan Hassan Omar (20) said she is also training to become a tour guide, after being inspired by another lady professional tour guide Fathiya Abdulrahman who paved the way for the girls to realize that times have changed and that women in the isles can now stand up to be counted.

Away from the bustling busy stone town, there are spices trees’ farms dotting the Dole section of Mwera District, the farms are also a tourist attraction; here there is another lady tour guide, Mwajuma Mohammed Kombo; “It is important to know each and every plant and tree species here,” she said.

Mwajuma, another product of Kawa training center, said parents in the isles have come of age, permitting girls to undertake careers that ten years ago would have considered ‘abomination,’ for ladies in the Muslim cultured Island.

The Founder and Managing Member at Kawa Training Center in Zanzibar, Suzanne Degeling pointed out that it wasn’t easy to get girls to join the college.

“Women empowerment has been key focus but, in the beginning, young ladies would hardly make it to 10 percent of participants,” she said.

However things are changing now, in the last two years the number has surged to push above 25 percent and counting as far as enrolled students are concerned.

Through different trainings and activities the program reaches out to over 20 underprivileged youths in the Isles annually.

“We aim to open new opportunities for them in the tourism sector,” said Napoleon von Sanden the TUI Care Foundation’s Communications and External Affairs Manager in a written dispatch from Germany.

The TUI Care Foundation has been fighting youth unemployment on Zanzibar for over three years now. Using tourism as pivotal force, the institution aims at unleashing the industry potential to help local communities thrive and foster inclusive development – and being tourism a key economic sector for Zanzibar, the potential is enormous.