Mtumwa Hassan Ali was born in the small village of Matemwe, on the north-eastern coast of Unguja (also known as Zanzibar Island). With a subsistence economy mostly based on seaweed farming and fishing, and educational support only to Form IV (senior secondary school), the opportunities for tertiary education are rare.
2004 crossroad
In 2004, at the age of 20, Mtumwa had reached a crossroad. She had a hunger to continue her education, but this called for the brave step of moving away from her home village which she had lived in all her young life, to stay with her Aunt, a teacher in the town of Bububu, on the west of the island.
years