Tanzania: Firm Seeks to Raise Fund for Zanzibar Heroes

Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)

Issa Yussuf

15 March 2011

Zanzibar — FUTURE Century Sports Limited is organizing a fundraising Gala dinner set for next week, targeting to raise more than US 200,000 dollars for supporting the development of the Zanzibar National Football Team- ‘Zanzibar Heroes’, members of the organizing team said here on Tuesday at a press conference.

“The event has been embraced on both a local and international spectrum, where Mr Garry Rasborne, the President of SuperSports Africa will personally be at the event and his crew and team will fly in from Kenya to record the event and air it on DSTV which will be seen in over 48 countries in Africa,” Helene Masanja from Future century told journalist in Zanzibar’s Stone Town.

She said that the fundraising event to be graced by the Zanzibar president Dr Ali Mohamed Shein is scheduled to take place at the Zanzibar beach resort in the evening of Friday, next week and “the funds will assist to manage, maintain, develop, promote and sustain the Zanzibar Heroes.”

Flanked by former General Secretary of the Tanzania Football Federation (TFF) Frederick Mwakalebela, and Zanzibar Football Association (ZFA) General Secretary Mzee Zam Ali, Helene said the ‘exclusive event’, looks at involving stakeholders, supporters and sponsors of Zanzibar Football and Zanzibar Heroes through involving them in the annual plan which shall be presented during the dinner.

Future Century Sports Limited believes that, towards the end of dinner, all initiatives and events will have a sponsor allocated. The firm held that this shall be a platform to create a long term engagement and sponsorship that will develop and promote Zanzibar Heroes to international standards.

Masanja named some of the sponsors and expected companies to donate money as the People’s Bank of Zanzibar, Zanzibar Insurance Corporation (ZIC), Zanzibar Ports Authority, Explore Zanzibar, and Zanzibar Social Security Fund (ZSSF).

Mwakalebela said that they were determined to build Zanzibar soccer by having a sustainable support of the national team, as Zam said and thanked the government and Future Century for the proposed fundraising event.

Joseph Kilangi, a representative from the Zanzibar ministry responsible for sports said at the press conference, “the government is always positive in all plans aiming at promoting sports. The government has been increasing the budget on sports.”

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