Recent Visitors at ZAACA Meetings....

Every first Monday of the month ZAACA members meet at the National Art Gallery of Zimbabwe. In these meetings we typically start with an opening prayer, review minutes of the last meeting, introduce new members/guests then deal with any other business at the end.

The purpose of the speakers is to inform, educate and inspire ZAACA members as a means of capacity building. For example in September 2016 we were honoured to receive to visitors Chilo Lino and Leslie Mittleberg who are product developers and buyers who specialize in African imports. Leslie is the founder of Swahili Imports, an organization which imports modern African craft from the original artisans in Africa for export to the USA. Her friend Chilo is from Mozambique and has worked for organizations such as Aid to Artisans. Leslie provided some insights on the export market, pricing and product expectations. Together with Chilo they also provided information on costing - a challenging area for artisans due to the high cost of living in Zimbabwe (relatively speaking)

We've also invited speakers from CBZ ((Mr Dongo and Mr David Kanyani – Snr Managers in charge of micro finance at CBZ bank) who talked to us about their lending procedures and how they are able to assist artisans who have not yet formalised their businesses. Mrs Blessing Magena was invited to talk to ZAACA about the SME Expo we highlighted in a previous post.

Following these speakers, Ownai (a free local online marketplace) representative Japhet demonstrated the Ownai website to members, encouraging them to use it as a means to attract a wider customer base. Most recently at our November meeting, members of the Harare Chamber of SME's Mr Taurai Marembo, Mr Museve Chairman of SMEs, Deputy Chairman, Lucky Moyo, Deputy Secretary, Mr Chinego (organising secretary) and Shamiso responsible Marketing came to talk to us about another upcoming SME expo.

So as you can see we have been quite busy at ZAACA!! We hope to increase the momentum even more in 2017.