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Showing posts from November, 2011

Achievement

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Zainab founded Zara Tours in 1987 in Moshi. Her company started offering climbs to Mount Meru and Mount Kilimanjaro, as well as safaris to the national parks. Today, Zara is one of the largest Kilimanjaro outfitter and one of the largest safari operators. It also operates two hotels and three tented camps, as well as offering trips to Zanzibar.

About Me

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  I am a female entrepreneur and I run today, proudly, one of the biggest tourism companies in my country-Zara Tanzanian Adventures. It took a lot of will and courage to reach the point where I am today because women in Tanzania or in any other developing country, face great challenges when creating companies and and becoming entrepreneurs. An African belief is women are supposed to stay at home and take care of children. At times, society even does not expect you contribute to public life or to benefit the economy. So, when I pursued my dream of becoming an entrepreneur I had to overcome many barriers. One of them was access to credit. Women usually do not ask for loans and it was hard to convince the loan officer to grant me a loan to start my business.  To get licenses from the government was even harder than usual task precisely because I am a woman. Public servants were reluctant to give me the licenses I needed to start my own business. However, it was perseverance and resilienc