Zahra: On the importance of having a success road map

Sharing how she started her leadership journey, Zahra Salehe, the founder and executive director of ICCAO (the Integrating Capacity and Community Advancement Organization), says that from a young age she was influenced by her mother to become a leader.

She then drew a road map of her vision to help guide her to her destination. She says the roadmap clearly shows how to get to the success destination and entails the amount of work to be done in order to achieve it, adding that prayers, focus, and consistency were the things that guided her vision.

According to Zahra, being able to learn and unlearn as a young leader has helped a lot in shaping her leadership skills. “I had to focus on developing leadership skills over the years, and I’m still learning through experience, knowledge, field work, agenda setting, advocacy, and research,” says Zahra.

On why she focuses on young people’s welfare, Zahra says Tanzania is one of the countries with the fastest-growing youth population in the world, with 61 percent of the population being youth under the age of 35.

“Without them being involved in decision-making scenarios, their views will not be adequately represented, which is a disservice because they have to decide the future they want for themselves as the next generation,” she says.

Zahra’s dream is to see a world with equal opportunities. To that end, she is advocating for gender equality and the amendment of all policies and laws hindering girls and women from meeting their full potential, such as the Marriage Act of 1971, sections 13 and 17, which allow a girl below the age of 18 to be married with the consent of a guardian.

“This has led to so many young girls’ dreams being killed and left behind. I’m also advocating for girls’ access to education. ICCAO is already facilitating the return of girls to school through its re-entry programme by creating awareness in the community, sponsoring some girls with basic materials, and sensitizing the community to stop the social norms that hinder girls and women from meeting their full potential, such as removing the stigma around teen mothers going back to school,” she explains.

Commenting on the efforts to improve gender balance at her organization, Zahra says, “At ICCAO, the female-to-male ratio is 6.4.6. This goes along with the gender policy at our office, which ensures gender equality in all aspects.

According to Zahra, the availability of a gender policy at the workplace helps in strategizing and ensuring gender equality is infused in all frameworks. She says that both the public and private sectors are not doing enough to address the issue of gender balance.

“Most sectors do not have supportive policies to ensure certain positions are held by a number of women, yet we have a lot of qualified women across all sectors in the country,” she says, adding, “The gender policy will help women showcase their capacity in leadership and inspire more women to take leadership roles.”

“A good working environment should also be established to create more room for women, and the policies should work to dismantle the patriarchal system in most organizations,” adds Zahra.

Commenting on the leadership challenges she faces, she says, “Ensuring the availability of needed resources and funds for the whole strategic plan of the organization remains a challenge.”

She adds that funds and resources, especially for young organizations, are hard to come by.

Zahra uses her extra time for learning and developing new skills, especially on management, advocacy and lobbying.

In search of new skills, she became a Youth Leadership Forum (YLF) alumna in 2021. YLF is a program to unleash the untapped potential among youth by Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES).

She is also a Dada Rise alumna, a young women’s leadership program by AKILI DADA in Nairobi. She also works as a consultant with organizations such as the Economic and Social Forum (ESF) to ensure the inclusion and voice of youth in research projects.

Her responsibilities at ICCAO include strategic leadership and organizational management in policy compliance, leadership roles, procedure compliance, financial control compliance, and management of the organization’s portfolio, among others.

About ICCAO

It is a youth-led and serving organization that aims to build an environment that fosters and increases youth participation in civic and development activities.

The organization was established six years ago and has since benefited more than 200,000 people to date. It has offices in Dar es Salaam, Coat Region, Mara, Tabora, Shinyanga, and Dodoma.