Welcome aboard Dhow Kipepeo, the Butterfly Sailboat (White Butterflies) of Umoja Ushongo — prioritizing ecotourism & reciprocity in the ocean
Dhow Kipepeo was recently built by our family for our Captain of the family, inspired by our growing family. The best local captain of sailboats, Umoja Ushongo’s Omary Abdallah, is our boat keeper. After working for Tanzanian residents for many years, keeping up their sailboat and taking them out, it was time for him to become the captain of his own ship and take out his own family, friends & guests to our second home: the ocean.
However, as Umoja Ushongo has simultaneously emerged, we know this it is a lot more than just a family sailboat and a significant piece of the Umoja Ushongo community movement, anchoring Umoja Marine (Baharini). Umoja Marine operates within the Blue Economy to serve eco-tourism, education, the environmental, and sustainable socioeconomic activities that support the locals:
Tourism opportunities include:
Snorkel trips to our local Marine Reserve, Maziwe Sand Island
Snorkel trips to our other nearby sand island, Funguni Island
Diving trips with our local diving instructor from Zanzibar
Transfers to and from Ushongo Beach and the north of Zanzibar
Sunset cruises and/or cruises down our local Pangani River
Fishing trips between Ushongo Beach & Zanzibar (Half/Full Day)
Educational opportunities include:
Sponsoring local children to visit their local islands while practicing how to swim and snorkel well, meet their local diverse corals and wildlife with firsthand experience, and begin to value the life under the water enough to want to protect it alongside their seafood needs (learning the gift of reciprocity between protection and abundance)
Environmental & socioeconomic opportunities include:
Sponsoring a coral nursery, one coral gardening project at a time.
Learning regenerative seaweed and sea moss farming practices that can be developed into local products for an organic marketplace (Umoja Ushongo’s Wellness Marketplace), focusing on nutrient-dense, healing body oils and edible powders/gels that serve as uniquely powerful dietary supplements. Other self-care products include sponges, soaps and other potentialities to discover.
Educating, engaging and monitoring local leadership to harvest marine wildlife seasonally, in specific timeframes, that yield a win-win scenario for marine restoration and increased local profits.
NOTE: We have learned that the boat is beneficial for this project as the seaweed and sea moss may be better captured in the deep sea.
NOTE: Research shows locals are not earning enough for their labor by selling seaweed and sea moss as a raw material, rather than developing into a product for greater value that uplifts their work.
Environmental opportunities focusing on plastic reduction and elimination include:
Supporting an initiated movement for children to pick up plastic coming in from the ocean by expanding it for more village members to become involved and clean their beachfront as well as village. We will supervise the designated space(s) for plastic collection that will be connected to an upcycling opportunity (ie. transformation into construction items that could be used as well).
Replacing disposable, one-use plastics in the village as much as possible. First, we would like to replace plastic soda bottles used for local juice orders (shedding microplastics with reuse) with personal steel/glass jars used for this purpose, alongside additional sisal-covered, upcycled glassware to encourage local well water over plastic bottled water (decreasing the demands and use of plastics).
Additional to expanding well water availability, sponsoring a truck to drive through the community to fill people’s home bottles and buckets with local well water via full containers loaded onboard (as seen in Dahab, Egypt) — decreasing plastic bottled water usage.
Implementing an advanced recycling and upcycling system able to handle items that are not plastic nor healthy to be burned in a fire. We plan to implement at-home and community level composting, recycling/upcycling, and burning plans for the entire community.
Educating the community on bucket composting with food scraps (instead of throwing them on the beach) to support the production of healthy soil for at-home gardens — this not only improves nutritional opportunity, but adds beauty while removing plastic.
Spreading awareness that plastics in synthetic materials and chemicals (including blankets, clothes & detergents) are shedding into our bodies, seeping into our lands, and polluting our oceans with mercury that our seafood eats, and then we eat, entering into our bodies once again. We want to encourage ocean conservation and an organic marketplace that can be supported, developed, and prioritized by the community to better serve the health & wealth of our homes. United, we believe small-scale work is high impact.
