We are team CHAKO, from left to right; Philippine, Lisanne, Nynke & Rosalie. As students from the TU Delft we will be working together with a social enterprise called CHAKO in Zanzibar. Together our focus will be on addressing the plastic waste issue on the island while pursuing gender equality. This enterprise creates job opportunities for the national community while creating new products from waste. Since there is no waste management and little job opportunities especially for women in Zanzibar. Our goal is to contribute to this mission of CHAKO, by creating a ceiling lamp from plastic waste. In this way promoting up-cycling waste and sustainability awareness for tourist and the broader community. A big thanks to S4S who contributed to this mission and helps us to turn waste into art!
Update:
In the past month we as team CHAKO have been quite busy. We can often be found at the workplace outside of Stonetown, where we work together with the artisans. Together with them we were able to create the framework and a carved wooden shade for the lamp. The artisans are talented woodworkers so this would never have been possible without them! We also started working on the molds for the plastic waste. Pressing the plastic is still quite a job, but we are making good progress. By first shredding different colors of plastic and then melting it in the injection machine, we get a nice mix of colors in the bars. This way we can give the plastic collected on the island a beautiful new life!!
Update:
As team CHAKO we have been in Zanzibar for over 2 months. A lot has happened in the meantime. We started by producing a wooden frame for the lamp. The artisans that we work with have done a fantastic job. They carved the unique CHAKO flower into the frame and created different frame sizes for large and small lamps. In addition to the woodwork, we mainly focused on recycling the plastic. By first shredding shampoo bottles and plastic caps and then melting them in an injection machine, we get the right shape for our lamp. Together with the plastic team at CHAKO, we have already been able to give a lot of plastic a new life. Marketing is planned for the coming period! With our lamp we visit hotels and resorts to involve them in CHAKO's mission! Thanks S4S for helping us pursing a waste free Zanzibar!
Update
Project CHAKO has already been completed, 3 months have flown by. Together with 'team plastic'; a group of women working at CHAKO, and the CHAKO wood team, we were able to design and develop a lamp. It was a wonderful time in which we learned a lot from them and where we also discovered together how we could most efficiently give plastic waste a new life. The group of women have learned how to work with the plastic injection machines and can now produce a lamp independently. We created a total of 3 models in which 0.7; 1.7 and 3.2 kilos of plastic waste are processed. Looking back, Sada, one of the women at CHAKO, says: “At first all the steps were difficult, but in the end I am proud and happy with the end result.” We also received positive responses from the resorts we visited with the lamp, indicating future collaborations. As a group, we would like to thank you very much for your contribution to a cleaner and empowered Zanzibar and who knows, you may soon see the Bahari lamp in the CHAKO webshop.
