Trading gemstones in Tanzania: Shamsa Diwani

Shamsa Diwani was content working as a secretary for Air Tanzania, until she fell in love with gems. Now she is a gemstone trader in Tanzania's artisanal and small-scale mining sector. "You get more money if you add value because you're not just selling rough stones but something that has greater value," she says. Shamsa, a past secretary general of the Tanzania Women Miners Association, says that she sees her work as a partnership with miners, especially women miners. "I said, let me concentrate on value addition and other people can do the mining. After all, we are working together because all the customers they want to know where do you get these stones, how are they mined, if they are safe, so my interest was selling, meeting people." More details: https://www.iied.org/small-ventures-b...