10 years marinecultures.org - A reason to celebrate.

02.09.2019

In April 2009 we founded marinecultures.org with the idea to offer the women of Jambiani a better opportunity than to earn their money with seaweed cultivation.

Parallel to the development of sponge farms, over the years we have increasingly turned to marine conservation. The need for this is made clear to us here every day. With the increase of tourism there are more and more snorkelers and divers whose boats cause anchor damage. Corals are dying rapidly due to global warming. The sea is being fished out. Nevertheless, the demand for fish and seafood is increasing due to tourism and uncontrolled population growth.

Fortunately, our sponges like the warm water! They grow faster and become softer. But unfortunately we also have to fight against the occurrence of pests. That brings a lot of extra work. Despite all difficulties the sponge production increases steadily and we have built up the tenth farm this month!

Reason enough to celebrate with our whole crew.
Looking back on the past years - what we have achieved makes us all proud. We can look positively into the future and prepare ourselves for the fact that the beneficiaries of our projects stand one day also without marinecultures.org with firm legs on the ground. We are confident that we will make a valuable contribution to a better future.

Unfortunately, after 10 years our local project manager Okala leaves us as a permanent employee. Together with him we have built up everything here. He wants to devote more time to his own projects again. He does not leave us completely. He will continue to be available to us as a freelancer in the future.

As a replacement we have employed two young men from Jambiani. Ali Pandu will learn to dive after his probationary period to look after the sponge seedling farm and to support us in the coral farms. Ali Mahmudi has completed his 3 year project management studies in Tanzania and will step into the footsteps of Okala.

At the small celebration we duly said goodbye to Okala, watched the new film 'Bahari Salama' together and welcomed our two new employees. Together with them we will navigate our ship for the next 5 years.

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