Chole Island is located in coastal Tanzania in the Mafia group of islands. The region is also the site of the Mafia Island Marine Park, Tanzania’s first national marine park which was gazetted in 1995.
The Chole Society for Women’s Development (CSWD) is a grassroots organisation which has received financial support since 1997 from Kvinnefronten/Women’s Front of Norway through FOKUS, Norway. The funding from the Women’s Front has been used to help build and run a health clinic, market, nursery school and adult learning centre. It has also been used to sponsor various activities including adult education programmes aimed primarily at women, savings and loan groups for women, HIV prevention programmes, educational scholarships for girls, and classes in a wide variety of skills ranging from batik to Arabic.
The group now known as the Chole Society for Women’s Development first began to be active in early 1997 and was officially registered as an organisation (NGO) in 2000. It has also received support from the Chole hoteliers (Chole Mjini) and the Chole Social Development Society.
