COSAD Gives Its Highest Award to a 11-Year Hero Saira Yusuf From California

The Global Partnership Award (GPA) is the COSAD’s highest recognition presented annually. The award is triggered by two facts: It serves as a symbol of our greater appreciation of the solidarity in the fight against poverty and our journey together to create a more loving and a just world whereby, because of our creative collaboration the impact we have made will last for many generations to come. Secondly, it is awarded as a sign of gratitude to organizations, companies, individuals and/or families for their continued generosity and tireless monetary support to our community development initiatives in Tanzania.

And the 2010 Award goes to….

Saira Yusuf, Founder of Rafiki Education Scholarship, (RES), San Francisco, California.

Recognition Description: Saira was one of the members of the GCN (Global Citizen Network) volunteer team who came to Bukoba in August 2009 for a two week volunteer program. She was there with her parents Zia and Paru, as well as her younger sister Sanam (age 8). Because of her active participation in the conversation between COSAD local leaders and GCN she often asked many tough questions but the biggest one was one for which she decided to come up with a solution for. She wanted to know what happens when a kid passes their exams, is smart enough to continue school but the parents don’t have the money. She had also heard that young people were leaving Kangabusharo because of lack of opportunity and wanted to know who will help the people then. Answer: If young people receive education and commit to come back eventually Kangabusharo would be better off. Thus was born Saira’s Rafiki Education Scholarship!

Today, Saira’s idea is a practical reality. Three orphans are attending boarding school with full scholarship from Saira who organized car wash, baking cookies from her fellow children to ensure that their fellow young children in Bukoba have an opportunity to go to school.

COSAD believes sustainable development requires enlightened and informed citizens. That is why in every community we partner with we start with Community Resource and Learning Centers which is designed to promote the culture of reading and provide space for learning and exchange of ideas.

I personally believe nothing ensures sustainability like education.

Smart Baitani | COSAD Executive Director | smart@cosad.org | 612 227 0065

COSAD 2nd Annual Dinner for Tanzania's Community Development Efforts. February 2010

Dear friends of COSAD!

It is down to seven day only! I am pleased to bring you some very specific details of the COSAD 2010‘Night of Inspiration' Programs: It is another amazing night for COSAD! We are all overwhelmingly excited for the coming Friday February 26 2010 (Starting at 6pm) at Mount Olivet Lutheran Church of Plymouth, Minnesota

It is all set for you! Please see More at www.cosad.org

Once again, COSAD is bringing you an inspiring event with great program all brought to you in one evening! Your $25 will not only get you a delicious meal, but a night you will remember -- one filled with global entertainment, inspirational speakers, a silent auction with items ranging from Tanzanian coffee, a rare delicious blend produced from coffee beans grown in the slopes of the highest mountain in Africa, Kilimanjaro and along the shores of the largest Lake in Africa, Victoria, to authentic African carvings, drums, clothes and artifacts to time-share exotic vacations and more!

Above all, come and hear what COSAD has done in the past year because of our partnership with you!

Very special thanks for our main sponsors this year, our dear Friend Sue Johnson & Friends of Bukoba’s Bruce Lane Johnson Library and Community Resource Center and Mount Olivet Lutheran Church of Plymouth, Minnesota.

If you cannot make it, we will appreciate your support to COSAD. Please donate online at: www.cosad.org

I look forward to meeting you!

Smart Baitani, Executive Director

Smart@cosad.org | 612 227 0065

COSAD Mission:

To build partnerships that create community development through the support of projects involving micro-enterprise, health, education and culture.

COSAD Vision:

Empowering Tanzanians to get out of poverty, one community at a time.

COSAD Supporter Wins USAID’s African Diaspora Marketplace Competition!

Peter Drucker, one of the greatest management gurus of this century, summarizes so succinctly what UZA-MAZAO is all about: “Because its purpose is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two-and only these two-basic functions: marketing and innovation…all the rest are cost”.

Uza-Mazao^TM which is a Swahili word for “sell your produce”, is quickly becoming Africa's biggest, best-deal, 24/7 market in a mobile phone. It creates a marketplace via Short Message System – SMS text messaging to bring unprecedented levels of efficiency to buyers and sellers of crops, farm produce, livestock and livestock products.

Dr. Raymond Rugemalira’s UZA-MAZAO (http://www.uzamazao.blogspot.com) is a revolutionary idea that covers the two basic function of any business endeavor: Market and innovation. The innovation aspect is equally unprecedented as the marketing aspect for the rural farmers. Despite the fact that traditional communication infrastructures are nearly non-existent, there is a ray of hope through the resurgence of the use of cell-phones. COSAD (Community Solutions for Africa’s Development) (www.cosad.org), last year found that there is, at least, one cell-phone in every three households in the communities of Izigo, and Kangabusharo in rural Bukoba, Tanzania, where we are currently supporting farmers and women through our popular program: One Women One Goat. One Woman, One Goat, OWOG is a COSAD project under its core program named TACE (Tanzania Community Enterprise) initiative which was designed to create economic opportunities in rural Tanzania using market-based, micro business approaches to promote income-generating community projects.

UZA-MAZAO will solve the biggest puzzle in enterprise development in the rural areas that continues to be the challenge: Market. Currently local farmers in rural areas in Africa face daunting challenges beyond production of their crops. Even existing social enterprise and micro-lending programs have not done a good job in creating awareness on the role of the market and have not succeeded to close the huge gap between local producers and market access which is largely due to the lack of trade infrastructure and trading networks. Market is king. UZA-MAZAO is guaranteed to be the preferred partner of everybody engaged in the rural micro enterprise development. COSAD wants to take a faster track. The meeting is scheduled in early March in 2010 in Silicon Valley, California with the founder Dr Rugemalira and COSAD Executive Director to discuss sole representation in Tanzania!

COSAD being an organization that works with farmers and micro entrepreneurs in the Northwestern part of Tanzania will greatly provide an avenue for farmers ranging from goat owners selling their milk, organic farmers, to micro enterprise groups to have their market information on their figure tip. In addition, the most recently forged relationship between COSAD and the Tanzania Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (www.tccia.com), the largest trade industry in the country puts COSAD on the front seat on the matters related to linking Tanzania’s private enterprises with local, regional and international market.

P.S. The African Diaspora Marketplace Competition was organized by USAID and Western Union. Out of 733 entrants 58 were chosen as finalists and out of these only 14 were chosen as winners and were awarded grants. Uza-Mazao^TM was among the 14 winners.

By Smart P. Baitani, Executive Director, COSAD Inc (www.cosad.org)

COSAD Mission:

To build partnerships that create community development through the support of projects involving micro-enterprise, health, education and culture.

COSAD Vision:

Empowering Tanzanians to get out of poverty, one community at a time.