Self employment is the most common form of employment in Tanzania. Independent shop keepers and skilled trades people are literally on every corner, selling lunches, fixing phones, hocking wears, and of course sewing dresses. None of these small businesses have access to export markets, where their talent and skills are worth multiples of what they are at home. Zawadi and the “Adventure Dress” is an attempt to bridge the e-commerce divide between these great folks and the rest of the world.
There are many things to overcome in making this possible. There is no government e-parcel program like in China that lets Temu and Alibaba flourish. Even the smallest package shipped air freight is hundreds of dollars. While getting outside the country’s borders presents problems, inside those borders the average Tanzanian has zero trust in online shopping. It’s just too foreign a concept when everything you could want you could buy from someone you know right down the street.
We are bridging these gaps and building the trust necessary to make this possible. We are building a foot hold in an increasingly global market for Tanzania. To paraphrase one of the great speeches of JFK: We choose to make this dress, not because it is easy, but because it is hard.
I hope you join us on this hard adventure.