Wapanda Baiskeli Wasaidia Mradi wa Hospitali Makunduchi

Dr Jon Rees, of Brockway Medical Centre in Nailsea, travelled to Zanzibar in June to take part in a bike ride around the tropical island, off the coast of Tanzania, East Africa.

The 38-year-old GP was among a 40-strong group on the sponsored cycle ride for the Makunduchi Project which in total raised a staggering £80,000.

The aim of the trip was to raise funds for a maternity services in a rural area which currently has almost no medical care for mothers during delivery.

Maternal mortality rates are currently 170 times higher than in the UK, with one in 180 mothers dying in childbirth.

Jon said: “The trip was a great success – the local bikes were slightly crude and you were very lucky to have working brakes or gears, the roads were rough, and the temperature high.

“Cycling between 60 – 80kms per day proved a great challenge, but was highly enjoyable also – it was the first time Zanzibar had seen a bike trip of this scale, so the reception in the villages was noisy to say the least.”

The fundraising will allow the Makunduchi hospital to begin maternity services later this year and hopefully lead to significant reductions in maternal and infant mortality, added Jon.

He said: “I had never done anything like this before but I enjoyed the challenge.”

The ride took etween seven-10 days along a route close to the equator.

Jon who is married to Seema, a GP in Portishead, said: “Although there is a sense of paradise on the Indian Ocean Spice Island with its white sandy beaches and coral reef lagoon the average life expectancy is 47 years

“One in 180 women die during delivery of their child and one in six children die under the age of seven with the majority dying when aged less than two years.”

Jon took his one-year-old son Krishan out a lot of the back of his bike is helping with his training.

The doctor, who also has seven-year-old twins Kamran and Jaya, also cycled back and forth from his Bristol home as part of his training.

He said: “My training regime was to cycle into work from Bristol and back is approximately a 21 mile round trip and going out on call on my bike whenever possible.”

Jon is a trustee of the charity with a slogan ‘Money raised is not just a drop in the ocean’.

He said: “We have complete control over the fund, so there can be no corruption.

“People can see exactly where their money is going and monitor progress. People can and will make a difference.

“I am involved with this charity having worked in Zanzibar's main hospital approximately seven years ago as a surgical trainee.

"I spent some time there learning some operative procedures that we rarely carry out in this country.

“I worked at Mnazi Moja Hospital in Stonetown, the capital of the island - the hospital is completely unable to cope with the huge numbers of patients coming in from rural areas, and a terrible lack of resources.

“This project aims to help manage the less sick patients in the community and allow the main hospital to concentrate on more major illness.

“I became involved in a twinning project between this hospital and Musgrove Park where I was working at the time.”

It was a consultant at the Taunton hospital who is the founder of the charity.

Backwell and Nailsea Medical Group practice manager Maggie Robins collected toys for Jon to take out and Backwell & Nailsea Rotary Club is supporting the project by raising funds for an anaesthetic machine for the maternity unit at the hospital.


Nailsea People

Umuhimu wa Kura ya NDIO hapo Julai 31, 2010

Sio siri tena kwamba siasa za umimi,chuki na utenganao hazina nafasi tena katika visiwa vya Zanzibar. Hii ni kutokana na muafaka wa kihistoria uliofikiwa na Rais anayemaliza muda wake hapo Zanzibar Mhe. A. Karume na Mhe. Maalim Seif, ambao kwa pamoja waliona uhumimu wa kuwa na Zanzibar moja yenye kuelewana licha ya tofauti za kisiasa.

Utengano wa Zanzibar na hasa kijografia umesababisha kuwepo kwa mikwaruzo mingi kwa watu wa visiwa hivyo licha ya baadhi yao kuwa na maingiliano ya kifamilia. Tatizo la utengano huu lilitokana na Mapinduzi ambapo upande mmjoa wa visiwa hivyo kujiona kuwa unahusika zaidi na mapinduzi hayo kuliko upande mwingine wa visiwa hivyo. Hivyo basi utaona kuwa utengano huu ulijengeka zaidi kisiasa.

Imechukua zaidi ya miaka arobaini na sita kwa wanzazibari kuona kuwa kuna umuhimu wa kuelewana na hasa katika uwanja wa kisiasa, ambao umecheza nafasi kubwa katika mgogoro na mtafuruku wa utengano visiwani humu. Awali rais wa kwanza alikuwa akitamka hadharani nafasi ya wananchi wa kisiwa kingine katika uongozi wa juu visiwani hapa. Kauli zake hizo ni baadhi ya mizizi ya utengano visiwani.

Machafuko ya hali ya hewa mwanzoni mwa miaka ya themanini hayawezi kuwekwa kando katika mtafaruku huu. Kwani yalionyesha wazi ni kwa kiasi gani baadhi ya wanavisiwa wanavyochukuliwa katika hatima ya uongozi wa juu visiwani humu. Hii iliongeza mbolea katika utengano na chuki miongoni mwa wanavisiwa.

Kurudi kwa mfumo wa vyama vingi, ndio ilikuwa kilele cha utengano. Kwani kwa mara ya kwanza Watanzania wengi waliweza kujua nini kinaendelea katika visiwa hivi. Kauli nyingi za ajabu ajabu zilisikika katika kuona kuwa utengano wa kisiasa, itikadi na hadi kifamilia unaendelea visiwani hapa, hadi kusababisha kupoteza maisha ya baadhi ya wanavisiwa ambao walikuwa wamechoshwa na kadhia hizo.

Leo hii sio vyema kutupa lawama kwa upande wowote uliohusika na kujenga migogoro hii. Kwani pande zote kwa namna moja ama nyingine zimehusika kikamilifu katika kujenga utengano huu.

Hii ndio inafanya kuwa kila mpandae maelewano visiwani humu aone umuhimu wa kupiga kura ya NDIO. Kura hii ina umuhimu mkubwa sana katika maendeleao ya kijamii visiwani humu na kufuta kabisa historia chafu ya utengano na migogoro isiyokwisha ya kisiasa.

Matokeo ya kura ya NDIO yatawezesha wanavisiwa wote kufungua ukurusa mpya katika maisha yao ya kila siku. Ukurasa ambao utaweka historia miongoni mwetu na ulimwenguni kwa ujumla.

Napenda kusema kuwa hii ni nafasi adhimu iliyotukuta wanavisiwa, ya kuweza kujiamulia wenyewe hatima ya maisha yetu kisiasa kiuchumi na kujamii. Kumbuka kuwa hapo awali maamuzi yote makubwa juu ya maisha yetu yalikuwa yakitoka juu, kabla la hili la tarehe 31/07/2010.

Ni vema kwa kila mwananchi mwenye sifa ya kupiga kura siku hiyo kupiga kura ya NDIO, ili kuweza kuwa na visiwa venye umoja na kuelekea kwenye kuunda serikali ya umoja wa kitaifa mara baada ya Uchaguzi Mkuu.

Tatizo letu tunalijua na tiba yetu ni kura ya NDIO.

Swahili gift "Khanga" transgresses boundaries

It was just a cloth that came with the emergence of slave trade along the coastal line of East Africa, but its revolution and esteem put it on the map of Africa's lifestyle.

The Leso or Khanga as it is commonly known (wrapper or shawl worn around the waist ), is no longer much of a fashion statement in Kenya today or any other East African country -- certainly not what it was in the 1980s, when our mothers would strut around elegantly wrapped in it, making very respectable fashion statements.

Nonetheless, even today, any African women strongly attached to her culture must wear a leso as respectable attire at some point, especially during important social festivals. So how did this legendary piece of clothing come to influence African fashion for so long?

Incredibly, the origin of the Khanga (leso) was in the nefarious slave trade. Female slaves in the 19th century had to be "adequately" clothed before being transported to the Middle East. Because of the local religious obligations, many considered the Khanga a cloth befitting the occasion.

Traders from Gujarat in the Indian sub-continent, who had been visiting the East African coast for centuries, cleverly noted this and responded to the market demand by supplying a black cloth called the Kaniki. Whack was worn by slaves and poorer women.

The Merikani, another expensive cloth worn by high-society ladies, was supplied from North America. A pure cloth, it was embellished using simple dots and lines. Later, red color was added to the initial white, as artists experimented with dyes.

Block printing was the next progression, as patterns chiseled into cassava and sweet potatoes were imprinted onto the cloth. These, therefore, became the hallmarks of the Khanga.

As women wearing the colorful fabric gathered in the groups and chattered in the evening breeze of the Zanzibar sea-shore, men likened them to East Africa's ubiquitous guinea fowl (black and white dots resembling a guinea fowl) -- "Khanga" in Swahili -- with its brightly coloured spotted plumage.

Emancipated female slaves from the East African coast and Zanzibar, together with other women in the region, demanded ever- changing designs, setting in motion the trends that would make the Khanga a high-fashion item in the 20th century.

After the socialist revolution in Zanzibar, there was a lull in the leso trade, but only briefly. Soon, entrepreneurs from India were manufacturing the garments and exporting them to Zanzibar and the whole of the East Africa.

Before India became the leader in the industry, most machine- made Khangas came from Europe and China. In Kenya , there is only one manufacturing plant, while there are five in Tanzania.

The general presentation of the Khanga has improved with time. Text messages and proverbs are among its most recent additions.

This development was pioneered by the famous Hajee Essak family, who originally came from Zanzibar but settled in Mombasa in 1910. Back then, the language used was Swahili and the script Arabic.

The sayings are not just decorative. They have profound meaning both to the wearer and viewer. A typical one goes" Mama ni mama hata hawe nani" (a mother is a mother whatever else she may be).

Historically, such inscriptions solved the communication barrier in a culture where women were not heard or seen publicly. They gave a voice to the voiceless.

Interestingly the cloth is not worn in India , where it is made, because of the enduring stigma of its close association with slave women.

Seyyid Barghash who ruled Zanzibar in the early 20th century, banned noble ladies in his court from wearing it, claiming that it reminded him of the "dirty stinking black woman at the slave market."

The Khanga has not entirely escaped the onslaught of modernization, both in its material and message. Synthetic fabrics such as polyester have been employed in its production and it is now common to see political, religious and social messages written on it.

Even portraits of powerful leaders have found their way onto its material. The hard face of Ernesto "Che" Guevara -- the famed Latin American communist revolutionary -- is seen on many fashionable Khangas in Nairobi.

Other notable faces include the felled South African liberation movement activist Steve Biko, Mau Mau war hero Dedan Kimaathi and Agustinho Neto, the Angolan poet and revolutionary.

Spreading far and wide from its heartland in Zanzibar, the versatile Khanga can now be found on the East African coast, in the hinterland, in Madagascar and the Comoro islands and throughout the Middle East.

As Christed De Wit, a leading researcher of early forms of fashion in East Africa, notes in her book Evolution of Fashion in East Africa: "The Khanga has transgressed all boundaries of culture, religion and language. It has become the Muslim Swahili gift for those who seek to embrace it."

Xinhua

Islanders’ mistaken reverence for Kenya

By Joe Ombuor

To many Zanzibaris of African origin, Kenya produced their most revered liberator from Arab yoke, Field Marshall John Okello.

This is the notion I walked straight into and basked in the high regard that Kenya commands in the archipelago while on a brief trip on the semi autonomous Island recently.

Yet Okello, the ex-policeman who led poorly armed unemployed youth of the defunct Afro Shirazi party in a bloody revolution against the reign of Sultan Jamshi bin Abdulla on the night of January 12, 1964, was an Acholi from Uganda, and not a Kenyan Luo as is widely believed on the Island.

Records at the archives in Zanzibar say the self-styled revolutionary entered Zanzibar from Kenya through the northern Island of Pemba in 1958, claiming to have been a field marshal during Kenya’s Mau Mau uprising.

The Revolution

Older Zanzibaris who spoke to The Standard on Saturday on condition of anonymity said it was Okello, and not first President Sheikh Abeid Amani Karume late father to the current president as is officially claimed, who planned and executed the revolution with the Afro Shirazi Youth League.

Records have it that the young revolutionaries overcame the largely Arab police, taking automatic rifles, submachine and bren guns, with which they swiftly armed themselves to take control of strategic buildings such as the Sultan’s palace and other installations.