Beautiful Beginnings

Community “Bodytune” with Zanzibar’s Minister of Labor, Empowerment, Women, Children, & Elderly, Ms. Maudeline Castico, in the middle

AUGUST

It’s been four months since we officially opened our doors at WAJAMAMA Wellness Center. We inaugurated our wellness center by getting the community together at our first “Taste of Mbweni” block party, which was a huge success. People of different backgrounds from all over Zanzibar attended the block party. It was beautiful to see so many people come together to celebrate the opening of our brand new center with a mission to empower women, children, and communities in Zanzibar through health promotion and disease prevention.

WAJAMAMA’s Founder & CEO, Nafisa Jiddawi, her daughter Soraya, & Honorable Ms. Maudeline Castico, Minister of Labor, Empowerment, Women, Children, & Elderly

Our beginning has been successful thus far and that is in part due to the fact that the community has been very supportive of our movement to promote health and wellness in Zanzibar. We will always be grateful for that. In addition to the many lives we have been able to impact through health and wellness promotion at our clinic, and encouraging exercise at our women’s fitness center, we have also been able to reach out to the community through various wellness workshops.

Vero teaching our original “Bodytune” class

SEPTEMBER

The first workshop we had was for young ladies from all over Zanzibar who attend vocational training at EQWIP HUBs. For this group, we held a reproductive health workshop where we spent a few hours discussing various reproductive health topics. The ladies got to ask Nafisa, WAJAMAMA’s primary care provider specialized in family and women’s health, any questions they had about their bodies. Many of the questions the girls brought up were related to the causes of hormonal imbalance. The chat with the ladies was scheduled for thirty to forty-five minutes but the discussion ended up continuing for a few hours, as there were many more questions than anticipated. This workshop was empowering and a great reminder of one of the many reasons why WAJAMAMA exists: to provide as much knowledge as possible to the community. As most of our workshops end, the participants got to experience our signature “Bodytune” class; which is a mix of dancing and aerobics. The women had a blast and valued the opportunity to exercise in our safe space.

OCTOBER

October was a busy month for us. First we did free blood pressure checks for the community, which was inspired by the many unknown hypertensions that were diagnosed during the very few months of WAJAMAMA’s existence. The event was a success. Unfortunately we did find quite a few elevated blood pressures, but the great news is that we spent the following few weeks following up on the discovered cases. In addition to doing blood pressure checks at this workshop, we also invited a few startup vendors from the community to showcase and sell their products. It was a rainy day and the turn out wasn’t as great as we expected but we ended up screening around sixty people for possible hypertension.

WAJAMAMA’s founder and CEO, Nafisa, was then invited to give a talk about the current state of the nursing profession, at the State University of Zanzibar (SUZA), which is in the process of inaugurating their Bachelor of Science in Nursing program. She did a presentation to the faculty of SUZA’s college of health sciences about the Nurse Practitioner role, as well as the Doctor of Nursing Practice, Doctor of Midwifery, and the importance of nurses being involved in leadership roles.

Shortly after, WAJAMAMA was invited by Save the Children to take part in a panel discussion about the obstacles girls in this part of the world face. The discussion, which was held on the International Day of the Girl, was between a group of very impressive young women from various public schools, and representatives from a few organizations and ministries, including WAJAMAMA’s primary care provider, Nafisa. The conversation was empowering and we, as an organization with a mission to empower women, are looking forward to continuing such dialogues, especially with young women.

October is breast cancer awareness month. WAJAMAMA ended the month with taking part in a walk to raise breast cancer awareness, organized by Zanzibar Cancer Society, Oman Cancer Society, and the Zanzibar Outreach Program. We were very inspired by these amazing organizations, who also offered free breast exams to the community in their mobile clinics after the walk.

NOVEMBER

November is prostate cancer awareness month. Our in-house surgeon and urologist, Dr. Jiddawi, held a free prostate cancer awareness workshop for the community. It was another rainy day and the turn out wasn’t as great as we expected but those who did attend got to learn about benign prostate enlargement and its symptoms, as well as prostate cancer and ways to prevent complications associated with it. The workshop was very successful and made us realize the importance of offering more men’s health specific workshops as well.

At the end of November, team WAJAMAMA headed to the International School of Zanzibar’s (ISZ) annual craft fair to do free blood pressure checks and promote movement in the community. In addition to blood pressure checks by our primary care provider, we also offered a free “Bodytune” class by our energetic and passionate instructor, Vero. It was hot but great fun!

Blood pressure checks and personalized health care at ISZ’s craft fair

DECEMBER

A week after ISZ’s craft fair, team WAJAMAMA headed to the Zanzibar Beach and Watersports Festival to promote movement through our original “Bodytune”, “Power Hour”, and “Strike Fit” classes throughout the festival and offer free blood pressure checks for the community. Our dedicated fitness instructors, Vero, Lulu, and Msoma successfully made fitness fun for many, and our primary care provider discovered quite a bit of “borderline” and elevated blood pressures; all in young adults under the age of 30. Health education was offered to those who got their blood pressure checked, and those with borderline or elevated blood pressures were encouraged to follow-up with their primary care provider regarding their health.

Primary Care Provider, Nafisa Jiddawi, doing blood pressure checks

We ended our year by premiering our “My Body, My Health” workshop to the British School of Zanzibar. Students, aged eight to thirteen, got to learn about nutrition, how each food group impacts their body, and the importance of exercising regularly, staying hydrated, and choosing healthier food options whenever possible. The workshop ended with our “Power Hour” and “Bodytune” classes, lead by our amazing and fun instructors, Vero and Lulu, which the kids enjoyed a lot.

Lulu’s original “Power Hour” class for the British School of Zanzibar

Cheers to 2019! We are looking forward to doing a lot more for the community in 2020! Please reach out to us if you would like to learn more about WAJAMAMA and the services we provide, or if you would like us to host a workshop for your students, staff, or community.