The Stone Town of Zanzibar became a World Heritage Site in December 2000, joining a select list of sites around the world of 'outstanding universal value'. But Zanzibar is a living city where daily life is a struggle for many of its inhabitants. Poverty, degradation, inequity live side by side with built heritage of great beauty. The community-based rehabilitation programme addresses these two realities.
The objective of the community-based rehabilitation programme is to tackle physical degradation of the built environment by improving the basic quality of life of those who live and work in it. The Programme focuses on the needs of the community that inhabits and breathes life into the town, very many of whom are the urban poor. Eradicating poverty is a more intractable problem, but many of the causes of degradation are found in the way the town is occupied and administered. Community-based rehabilitation tackles these systemic problems, which perpetuate inequities, create a sense of powerlessness in both tenants and administrators, stymie investment in repairs or maintenance, accelerate the downward spiral of decay and fail to provide the resources, skill or incentive to reverse the situation.
The building is a typical Arab influenced architecture owned by the WAKF. The Stone Town Conservation Plan of 1994 lists it as "a significant building". The main facade is decorated with characteristic mouldings, oculi, and crenellation. Inside it has a typical courtyard with very valuable decoration and arches. Due to lack of maintenance it was in a deteriorating conservation state with some big structural problems and needed immediate intervention to prevent further decay.
Source: Aga Khan Cultural Services - Zanzibar
