Nungwi is a fishing village on Unguja Island in Zanzibar. Water is our life. Every day, people travel from here to reach local islands using dhows.

Some of my family live on Tumbatu and Pemba islands, and I use dhows to visit them, especially to celebrate religious festivals. The dhows are always badly overcrowded. Every time I’ve made the journey I’ve felt scared – I knew I wouldn’t survive if the dhow started to sink. Without lifejackets, and full of passengers who cannot swim, boats that capsize – as I have known them do near Tumbatu – cause people to drown. Too many people drown.

Growing up by the sea in Zanzibar I used to play in the water with my brother, but there was never an opportunity to learn how to swim. Girls in Zanzibar are always told there are better things they should be doing with their time. We’re told that swimming is for boys, not girls.

But last year I decided to learn how to swim. After 24 years I’d had enough. It isn’t fair that boys are taught to be safe, and not girls. Why should we drown while boys survive?

So I attended a swimming course by a local NGO called the Panje Project, supported by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI). I had one aim: to learn to swim so I could save myself and rescue other villagers in difficulty in the water. Too many times I have seen this happen; I don’t want to stand by any longer.

All the swimming teachers in Nungwi are male, but that didn’t stop me – I went with some female friends and asked them to teach us. They agreed. Of course, some people in the village said bad things about us, but I didn’t care, I just ignored them. The more people said bad things, the more I wanted to learn.

It took me 15 lessons to be able to swim. We learned how to float, swim, and rescue others using sticks, jerry containers and floats. The swimming lessons take place in the ocean, and to begin with it was so difficult. But since December I have been practising every week and now I can swim more than 200 metres.

I feel powerful and free. I want other girls to feel that way. Now I can swim I want to share these skills with girls across my village, my island, so that they can be safe too. I know that they will only be taught if I teach them. So now, I’m learning how to be a swimming teacher. It’s not just for men.

It’s a difficult programme but I am learning a lot, and I know I can do it. Once I’ve passed the course I’m going to train all my friends and family. Everyone in Zanzibar deserves the opportunity to be safe in the water; every boy and every girl.