That is why several rural area families have decided to roll up their sleeves and find innovative ways to improve their living conditions, including rock breaking into pebbles to sale to people needing it for building, and other petty business.

In Bwejuu village, about 37 kilometers, south of the Zanzibar stone town, women in one family have decide produce coconut fibre our of the coconut husks. Each member: children, mother, and grandmother contributes to the production of the fibre which they locally sale to an agent.

‘Coconut fibre processing work is quite hefty, but we have to do it to increase our income. Children help in carrying the husks to seashore, where I bury to classically soak to cause the fibers to swell and loosen so that they can be pulled apart. It takes about eight months or less to soften the husks before turning into yarn fibre. My mother, then straighten the fibre and twists into ropes which we then sale’, explained Ms Subira Ameir Haji.

Almost Not a single man is engaged in the coconut fibre processing. The yarn or the fibre is then sold to traders who export it abroad. Ms Subira, 45yrs, a mother of about seven children says she learned the local way of the coconut fibre processing from her mother Mariam Abdi, 85yrs, and ‘I am also teaching my children the work’.

In countries like India, with emerging economies, Fibre Processing Machines are used for coconut fibre processing. The fibre is obtained from coconut husk and then cleaned and condensed into bales. These coconut fibres are generally used in car seat filler, furniture cushion, rope, mats, rugs, mattresses and other goods.

Although families in Zanzibar have been engaged on the coconut fibre processing in the anti-poverty campaigns, the government has done less to support them. All of these actions have received no support from even from loan support schemes.

Special attention is needed for women, especially those who are from poor families in the rural. Working tools and management training are necessary, to be able to make life better for themselves and their families. Reducing poverty in rural areas becomes a goal easier to attain when people are engaged in the process. To attain such a goal requires a lot of determination and innovation!

For people who are most familiar with the coconut as a food, the myriad uses of coconut products may come as a surprise. Coconut fiber is a product which is extracted from the outer shell of the coconut fruit and used in a variety of ways worldwide, being especially popular for rope and matting.

Historians say that palm trees belong to one of the world's oldest plant families, and coconut palms have been cultivated for at least 4,000 years. They are among the most useful plants grown by people and have been known and used in India for 3,000 years.

An Arab trader of the eleventh century found that fibers from the palm were resistant to sea water. The Arab traders taught the Sinhalese and the Indians in the Malabar Coast how to prepare fiber from the nut.

Coconuts palms are grown throughout the Indo-Malaysian region, Central and South America, Dahomey, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Togo, and West Africa.

They require conditions of high humidity and plenty of sunlight. They grow on a wide variety of well-drained soils, but constantly need fresh water, and such conditions are often available on sea shores.