We Survived Our First Year! (June to August Newsletter)
JUNE
When June arrived, our team was equipped and delighted to welcome our community back to our wellness center. All of our clinical and fitness services resumed with new safety precautions in place. We launched an online booking system for our fitness classes to limit the number of participants in each class and keep our clients safe.
As the center fully reopened, it was important not to lose momentum with our disease prevention initiatives. Despite there being fewer reported COVID-19 cases, our dedicated team was determined to continue educating the public about ways to limit disease transmissions - not only because of COVID-19, but also other communicable diseases that have always burdened our community.
Thanks to the generosity of people from Zanzibar and around the globe, in addition to extensive public health education about infection control, we were also able to donate hundreds more handwashing stations to communities in Pemba and Unguja. Additionally, by the end of June we reached an amazing milestone; 10,000 free reusable cloth masks made by our #Masks4AllinZanzibar partners had been distributed around our islands.
We also collaborated with the Deputy Minister of Education, Honorable Simai Mohammed Said, to distribute masks and no-touch hand washing stations in his constituency, Tunguu, a central region of Unguja. Together with our partner, Pathfinder International, we also had the opportunity to facilitate the donation of 50 million TSH of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) from a U.S. donor to the Zanzibar Disaster Relief Team.
We were also proud to see our founder and clinician, Nafisa Jiddawi, spotlighted by her alma mater, Georgetown University, a prestigious university in Washington, D.C., for the work that she has been doing in Zanzibar. You can read the interview to learn more about Nafisa and why she returned to Zanzibar to open WAJAMAMA by clicking here.
*Photo by @therealtemidayo
June ended on a high, when WAJAMAMA became a proud sponsor of Safisha Zanzibar, a growing movement led by inspiring young people from Zanzibar Youth Talks. During their first community clean up in Stone Town, WAJAMAMA was recognized by the Minister of Tourism, Honorable Mahmoud Kombo, for our COVID efforts and Nafisa was invited by the Minister to speak to the crowd. Her message to the public was that we should all continue keeping in mind the infection control lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to also limit the spread of the various communicable diseases that have always existed in Zanzibar. Nafisa also spoke about the impact our environments can have on our health and the importance of keeping our communities clean.
JULY
Responding to a global pandemic was emotionally and physically challenging for our team. The burnout we were feeling during the pandemic reminded us of the importance of paying attention to our personal health and well-being, and maintaining a healthy balance in our work and family life. As we began scaling down on our COVID-19 efforts, we were able to refocus our energy towards continuing to improve our clinical and fitness services.
One partnership we were eager to continue developing was our youth wellness program in collaboration with Daraja Foundation. From the beginning, WAJAMAMA has been empowering girls from the organization through promoting health and movement at our fitness center. Seeing more girls from the Daraja Foundation joining our program reminded us of the importance of the work that we are doing at WAJAMAMA. Making movement and wellness a part of their lives can have lasting impacts on the girls, leading to healthier futures for themselves and their communities.
We proudly rounded off our COVID-19 efforts by setting up no-touch hand washing stations around our Mbweni and Chukwani neighborhoods, donating masks and no-touch hand washing systems to ZAYEDESA (Zanzibar Youth Education Environment Development Support Association), and visiting a primary school in Kendwa to speak to students about ways to limit disease transmissions and the importance of proper handwashing. We also continued to support the reopening of businesses in Zanzibar by delivering our signature Infection Control workshop to hotels, restaurants and shops.
On July 31st, our dedicated COVID-19 initiatives ended. Looking back, we had mixed emotions. We felt pain and sadness about the toll the pandemic has taken around the world, but at the same time, we felt proud of how resilient, unified, and creative our community became during the challenging months. We especially appreciate the generosity that we witnessed towards our COVID initiatives.
A very special thank you goes out to all of our individual donors, The Rotary Club of Zanzibar, Pathfinder International, our #Masks4AllinZanzibar partners, and everyone who has donated their time and resources towards the fight against the pandemic in Zanzibar! Our COVID-19 efforts would not have been possible without the generous support from around the world! You can read more about our COVID response in the recent Swahili Coast Magazine issue. What an honor it is to have our hard work highlighted in one of our favorite publications in East Africa!
AUGUST
August was full of new and exciting things for us at WAJAMAMA. We were excited to announce the arrival of our ultrasound machine, which has subsequently enabled us to offer a wide range of new services. We also welcomed the amazing Anisa Awadh from the Premiere Care Clinic in Dar es Salaam to our WAJAMAMA team. Anisa, who is specialized in prenatal and gynecological sonography, will be doing scans at our clinic every Saturday! Increasing access to specialized care has always been important to us. It is so exciting to know that mamas no longer have to travel all the way to Dar Es Salaam for their Nuchal Translucency and fetal anomaly and growth scans!
In August we also hosted our first ever Women’s Wellness Retreat! After months of stress and anxiety affecting us all, we felt that it was crucial to create an experience for women that focused on self-care, relaxation, and restoration. Our ‘Restoring Balance’ retreat was hosted at the beautiful Sharazad Boutique Hotel on the East Coast of Zanzibar with a special guest, Nancy Sumari, joining us. Guests were immersed in three days of self-restoration with daily movement led by our fitness instructors, thoughtful discussions among women of diverse backgrounds, mindful meditation practice, delicious food, and lots of laughs!
We also took the opportunity to bring back our Mama Café: a bi-monthly gathering of women to discuss topics affecting women, in a safe space. All proceeds from our Mama Cafés cover consultation fees for underserved women in our community through our ‘Mama Initiative’. Our guest of honor, Nancy Sumari, together with Nafisa, guided a powerful discussion around the importance of prioritizing self-care in our busy lives, over cupcakes and lattés. As always, we enjoyed every minute of the fruitful discussion we had. It was exactly what we all needed; talk about food for the soul! Our team returned to the clinic and fitness center refreshed, recharged and ready to serve our community!
In the spirit of restoring balance, we brought yoga back to our fitness center’s schedule. You can now enjoy our Power Yoga and Yin & Chill - a yin yoga class with guided meditation - led by our amazing instructor, Ayda, every week!
Speaking of firsts, our WAJAMAMA family celebrated our first birthday at the end of August! The most important lesson we learned during our first year is the importance of community. It was clear, especially during the pandemic, that together we are stronger! We saw no better way of celebrating our One Year Anniversary and 2nd annual Taste of Mbweni than by bringing together our neighborhood for a community clean up in collaboration with Safisha Zanzibar, a blood drive by Zanzibar Blood Bank, and of course, a celebration of the delicious food the Mbweni neighborhood has to offer.
It was an honor to have Minister Mahmoud Kombo inaugurate the event! As always, restaurants around Mbweni helped us celebrate by offering ‘tasting menus’ all day long. Additionally, members of the community were able to try out our signature fitness classes for free!
Our celebrations were concluded in a classic WAJAMAMA style; a community BODYTUNE session that had the crowd dancing and moving! A very special shoutout goes to everyone who participated in celebrating WAJAMAMA’s One Year Anniversary, and everyone who has been supporting our mission to empower women, children, and communities in Zanzibar through health promotion and disease prevention from day one! Bring it on year #2! We are SO excited to see what lies ahead and are looking forward to connecting with more members of our community!
Tupo Pamoja!
