Blog: This Tanzanian tech CEO is defying gender discrimination to protect the environment

This Commonwealth Secretariat website is element of a series launched at Youth4Weather and COP26, featuring young persons from across the Commonwealth who are leading the way on area local weather action. The weblogs are created by fellow youth citizens from the Commonwealth Correspondents network. Contact us to be part of this sequence. Watch the complete blog site sequence.

Hellena Sailas from Tanzania suggests no person believed she could begin a squander administration company. To them, it seemed an not likely aspiration for her age and gender.

This cultural stereotyping and limits put on ladies and gals is a person of numerous worries the young entrepreneur confronted in her pursuit of a career that would assist shield the ecosystem she loves so a great deal.

The East African region of Tanzania exactly where Hellena lives is perfectly-identified for its huge national parks, tropical coastline and Kilimanjaro Mountain, home to Africa’s highest Mountain.

Inspite of gender-similar cultural reservations from her neighborhood, Hellena continued with her mission to guard Tanzania’s all-natural splendor and quickly started Arena Recycling and Arena Technologies – social enterprises that have aided drive the use of a recycled design engineering called eco-bricks, and are contributing to a more healthy, a lot more sustainable atmosphere for all.

Daily life below water

Hellena’s journey started in 2019 right after she attended a United Nations atmosphere conference and volunteered for a non-governmental organisation engaged in seashore thoroughly clean-ups and ocean advocacy.

Immediately after researching how to prevent squander from achieving the ocean, she realised a answer lay in pinpointing the main resources of plastic air pollution. This was the delivery of the thought for her enterprise, Arena Recycling.

“After attending the UN Environment Youth meeting, I acquired insight about the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and very worried about SDG 14: daily life below water. I figured out how plastic influences our ocean and marine everyday living and made the decision to discover a answer.

“But rather of accumulating plastic from the ocean, I needed to learn what we can do to protect against it from receiving there in the initially spot.”

Innovation for Tanzania

Just after even further study on a extensive assortment of techniques for plastic management, Hellena and a mate decided to operate their recycling in different ways to other waste management companies in Tanzania.

Fairly than just functioning to avert squander from finding to the oceans, she decided to transform plastic squander into reusable products and solutions, this kind of as development elements, especially eco-bricks.

Her strategy was a new and one of a kind idea regionally, so several men and women in her group considered she was embarking on a journey she would not finish. But by way of functional trial and error, Hellena and her group learned to switch plastic squander into usable eco-bricks.  

This innovation developed a movement regionally, and right now in Tanzania, eco-bricks are utilized in Dar es Salaam city for home construction and other significant creating projects.

New technology

The achievements of Arena Recycling led to Hellena and her close friends starting a further social enterprise, Arena Know-how, which specifically converts the plastics and sand into constructing materials like eco-bricks.

Arena Technology has experienced a wider effects on the neighborhood economy way too. She suggests: “The rationale driving this is to insert value to that plastic we can retain the ecosystem cleanse and we can develop careers for youth and girls.”

Her firms have also partnered on distinct initiatives that provide regional communities, including the U.S. Embassy and Younger Water Options, an global NGO that constructs bogs and sinks with eco-bricks. Major educational facilities in her community of Dar es Salaam have also benefited from the challenge.

Thanks to Hellena’s hard work, nearby communities now believe in the capacity of the recycled materials – not only because eco-bricks are resilient, but mainly because they are the greatest way to secure the surroundings.

Gender problems

But while her social enterprises have a experienced large affect, gender discrimination has ongoing to cause difficulties for Hellena. “I questioned the financial institution for a financial loan, and the reaction was like ‘you are younger and you are also a girl, how can you assure us that you can return our cash?’. Persons appeared at me like I can’t do this because of my age and gender. I have faced that obstacle from many men and women.

“Although numerous folks know about Arena Recycling in Tanzania, they do not know the founder. When I speak to people today who want to make donations, their reactions are quite hard often.”

Apart from the discrimination Hellena faced as a lady participating in a non-classic profession, she also encountered technological complications acquiring engineers and machines that were highly developed ample to match her manufacturing course of action.

“This is an innovation, so when it came to altering the machines to fulfill our desires, some engineers had issues with comprehension what we needed,” Hellena describes.

Although this slowed their progress down, inevitably the devices were being modified to common many thanks to private sector donations – but today the company nevertheless calls for funding to acquire innovative devices that can empower mass creation.

Youth leader

Hellena states these technological and cultural issues do not trouble her, simply because she understands she is straight offering value to culture and the environment.

When surrounding herself with a workforce of folks who are similarly passionate about her vision and mission is inspiring, Hellena also finds terrific inspiration in moving past the disbelievers and discrimination that may perhaps hold other people back again. She advises: “We have to transform all these troubles into prospects. When you are faced with a new problem you discover new strategies of solving them you do not want to stop or give up.

“And when you study about profitable business owners, you should know the highway was not all sleek. Go on accomplishing your very best to fix every single impediment and go on.”

You can learn additional about Arena Recycling on Fb and LinkedIn.

This Commonwealth Secretariat site is element of a series launched at Youth4Local weather and COP26, that includes youthful folks from across the Commonwealth who are foremost the way on local local weather motion. Look at the comprehensive weblog collection.

The blogs are created by fellow youth citizens from the Commonwealth Correspondents network. To be part of this series, call us. 

Share this blog collection on social media applying hashtags #CommonwealthForClimate, #CommonwealthYouth and #BlueCharter.

All pics are by Irene Goodlucky and owned by Arena Recycling