Zanzibari schoolgirls enjoy swimming

Life on the island of Zanzibar, with its surrounding ocean, was difficult for women, as women with a Muslim majority population were prohibited from learning to swim.

Two things changed that. The first was the advent of the full-body swimsuit, or burkini. The second project is a project called Bangi (a Swahili word meaning “big fish”). It was established by an NGO in 2011 to support youth in Nungwi village to find work. Panji taught women in the village to swim for the first time and in turn encouraged them to become swimming teachers, challenging entrenched patriarchal learning models.

Photographer Anna Boyazis grew up in California. Her family's origins were in the Aegean Islands of Greece.

In 2017, as part of a project called Searching for Freedom in Water, Boyazis spent a long time convincing the Islamic authorities in Nungwi to allow her to photograph women participating in the Pangui initiative, so that the idea could be promoted as an example to follow. Especially since the east coast of Africa has some of the highest drowning rates in the world.

Boyazis' "Burkini Island" series has been featured in National Geographic magazine and has received numerous awards, including a World Press Award and a UNICEF Photo of the Year award.

This picture is all about simple liberation; With their eyes closed, the women seem to have moved beyond the mundane reality of the water bearers' buoyancy aids.

Speaking about her series, Boyazis said: “It was torture for me as a woman growing up in Zanzibar that I was not allowed to swim. This project was a clear merging of two of my favorite worlds, being in the water and taking photographs.

Zanzibar or the People's Republic of Zanzibar is part of the Federal Republic of Tanzania although it enjoys autonomy in internal affairs. It consists of a group of islands located in the Indian Ocean belonging to Tanzania in East Africa and 35 km (25 miles) away from the coast called Tanganyika.

Official language

The official language of Zanzibar is Swahili, which is a mixture of ancient African languages and Arabic, and some linguists estimate that more than 70 percent of this language is of Arabic origin.

Industrial sector

The primary craft of the population in Zanzibar is agriculture, and one of their most important crops is Cloves, for which the country was famous throughout the world, and there were between 3 and 4 million trees of it, which made it the first place in exporting it in the world.

The first person to introduce agriculture there was the Omani Sultan Said bin Sultan, and it is also famous for growing crops of carrots, coconuts, mangoes, and corn.

  The people of Zanzibar work in a craft, as it is located entirely in the waters of the Indian Ocean.

The country's industrial sector is active in the oil, candy and medicine industries. Currently, the tourism sector is thriving due to the island's long beaches in addition to its picturesque natural scenery.