Latest news with #Gambia
Telegraph
an hour ago
- General
- Telegraph
The oyster farmers paving the way for women in West Africa
Known as 'the smiling coast of Africa' the Gambia is a lively little country which wriggles through the middle of Senegal like an intestine. The river after which it was named starts in Guinea, and runs 700 miles directly through the Gambia to Banjul, where it joins the Atlantic Ocean. It is not somewhere one might immediately associate with oysters, yet oysters are one of the mainstays of the Gambian diet – high in protein and essential nutrients, they grow prolifically on the roots of the mangroves that border the many tributaries of the river. We are not talking about raw oysters served on an elegant dish with a slice of lemon and Tabasco and a glass of Picpoul; these oysters are shucked, cooked and sold in the market for 60 dalasi (about 60p) for a large cupful; tiny little things that look like mussels and are often served in a stew. But oyster harvesting is a tough job, and 98 per cent of the people who do it are women. During the designated oyster harvesting season – which is four months of the year, from March to June – the women take canoes out on the water at low tide, and chip the oysters off the roots of the mangroves with small axes. They then have to be sorted, shucked and cooked, before being sold at the market. It's an arduous job, especially because many of the women can't swim – there is no swimming culture in the Gambia, the river is something to be afraid of – so drowning is not uncommon. They have only very basic facilities where the preparation is done, with limited access to fresh water, and they have to rent canoes. But thanks to an initiative called Fish4ACP, which was launched in 2022 by the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) and partly funded by the EU and Germany (and, until recently, USAID) support and resources are on hand for the women: swimming lessons, lifejackets, canoes and new cultivating initiatives which will increase productivity and improve standards of living. An unlikely sounding player in this is the founder and owner of the very successful Whitstable Oyster Company, James Green, who has been employed by the FAO since 2022 in an advisory capacity, to improve oyster productivity. Using coupelles and grow bags means that oysters can be cultivated in parts of the river where the water is at its purest. Cooking the oysters kills the pathogens and algotoxins, but the eventual aim is to be able to sell raw oysters to Gambia's many tourists. Hopefully, this will come to fruition next year. Green, who studied marine biology and has a Masters in Aquaculture, has been here several times over the last three years. 'It takes 12-18 months for an oyster to grow here in Gambia, because it's warm. In England it can take up to three years. My part of the project is to source a fresh oyster product: a quality individual oyster that people can have on the half shell, with a bit of lime or lemon juice.' Another new initiative of the oyster industry, to supplement income, is a handicrafts and jewellery project, using the shells of oysters and other shellfish, which are painted and laminated and crafted into jewellery. The idea behind this is also to attract younger women into the business (known as 'the young ones') who might be put off by the hard grafting of hacking and shucking, but are interested in the creative side. So we begin with a visit to Lamin, a village south east of Banjul in Tanbi wetland. Development is frenzied in Banjul and its surrounding areas and the roads are fringed with multitudes of unfinished buildings. Traffic has dramatically improved thanks to a new three lane road, which was years in the making. There used to be only one traffic light in the country, our driver tells us, and people would use it as a landmark: 'Go right at Traffic Light.' And there was also only one roundabout, which was known as Turntable. 'When it was first built, people didn't know what it was and drove over it.' At Lamin Lodge there is a lot of activity: women are cleaning oyster shells and painting them. Around the hut – indeed all over every beach we saw – are huge piles of discarded oyster shells like shingle, often with tiny goats climbing all over them. (The shells can be burned and reduced to lime to make paint, but that takes a lot of wood and costs more than it's worth in labour and fuel.) Profit from the sale of the jewellery is reinvested in buying materials and infrastructure for the handicrafts project, which is the initiative of TRY Oyster Collective, a community-based organisation with about 600 members (which is one of the beneficiaries of Fish4ACP) working to improve livelihoods and raise standards of living. A lot of women in West Africa work in the shellfish sector; I am told that men tend to think that harvesting oysters is not worth their time; they stick to fishing, which is responsible for 12 per cent of the country's GDP. But fishing here, like in many other African countries, has been vastly depleted by Chinese-owned trawlers and fishmeal factories, making it harder and harder for the local fishermen to make a living. Fatou Jahna Mboob is the director of TRY, which she founded in 2007; a formidable and warm-hearted woman who has devoted herself to empowering the oyster women, and protecting the local ecosystem. One of her goals is to get the younger generation on board. 'One mother told me that harvesting oysters is very hard and they are only doing it in order to get a better education for their children – it is not how they want their children to end up, struggling in the water. But their children can do both – go to school, and work in oysters. Once you've been educated, and learned to swim, you can contribute a lot more.' Thanks to Fatou, TRY now has exclusive harvesting rights in the Tanbi wetland complex, which covers about 6000 hectares, over two thirds of which is mangroves. Previously the women would cut the mangroves to remove the oysters, now they chip them off, which is arduous but more sustainable. Further east along the river, at Kubeneh, the oyster harvesting is in full swing. Supervised by James Green, the women are removing rubber spat collectors (known as coupelles) from a wooden rack in the river, in the intertidal zone, where they have been languishing since October – to be stripped of their bounty. When oyster larvae attach themselves to a surface, it is known as spat, which will grow into adult oysters. These oysters will be transferred to Kartong, where the water has been tested, to be put in the river to grow. 'We take them off the spat collectors and put them into floating bags,' says Green, 'and then you have to maintain the stock to keep the oysters individual – they've got a propensity to settle on other oyster shells and you don't want oysters clumped together like on mangroves because you can't sell those as a fresh product. The bags are secured to anchored floating lines where they stay for another year to grow into a market sized oyster.' There is a gentle breeze as the women sit underneath the neem tree, shucking cooked oysters. Their hands are covered in callouses, but they are very lively and cheerful. Any excuse for shouting and singing. Lunchtime – spicy Pempem – soon turns into a song and dance session, with James and Khadija Diallo, project co-ordinator of the FAO, dragged in for good measure. 'We couldn't find the right guy until James came along,' says Diallo, 'but it was clear that he knew what he was doing; he listens to the women, and guides them – he's been here several times and he's like family to these communities. He understands the culture which is very important.' There are 16 separate oyster gathering communities on the west coast of the Gambia. Fatou Sambou is the president of the Kubeneh community, which has grown from 15 members to 44 in the last two years (the youngest being 21 and the oldest 70) and has a backstory which is fairly typical: now aged 54, she never went to school and her parents were farmers. She started working in oysters after she got married. She works on the oysters during the season, the rest of the time she picks up crabs and cockles; anything to help feed her six children (one of her own and five nephews and nieces who she has adopted.) Her husband lives in Senegal, where he has two other wives. 'The oyster community is like my family – we look after each other and respect each other.' The following day, in Kartong, we are beside the Allahein river on the border with Senegal, one km from the sea, and James and the oyster women are fixing plastic fasteners to the special bags that the oysters which we have brought from Kubeneh will be placed in to grow – about 300 oysters to each bag. Marie Demba is 44 but looks much younger. She never finished school as both her parents died when she was young, and she has worked in oysters ever since leaving school. How has the oyster business changed since then? 'We had no money and struggled – we used to only be able to charge 10 dalasi (10p) for a cup – now it's 60 dalasi. We are like a family now, this association.' The season finishes next month, and for the rest of the year she is a fish smoker, which is very bad for the lungs, and she has been hospitalised. 'Others do gardening – grow okra, sorrel, onions, and sell them in the market.' We wait until the tide is out and then climb in a boat. The boat trip is a rowdy affair – the women are wearing life jackets, special footwear and gloves. They take the bags and attach them to specially constructed floating racks; then check the cuprolles that are already in place there. The following day we go to another site – Old Jeshwang, so I can see what the oyster harvesting in the mangroves is like. While we wait for the tide to be right, I talk to some of the women about their lives, and meet Alice, who is 26, a young man called Lima Manga, who does data collection for TRY, and Andrea, a volunteer and self-confessed 'oyster nerd' from Maine, USA who is researching the benefits of oysters for the environment. Alice was studying to be an accountant but had to give up her studies when her father became sick; now she is involved with the handicrafts and helps her mother with shucking. Her mother wants her to continue her education, and not be an oyster harvester. 'My mother says, 'Look at my hands! Do you want to look like this?'' Fatou tells me that TRY has helped the women manage their finances; and taught them how to save. Everyone keeps their own profits, but each community contributes a small amount to a central fund which helps out if someone is sick or needs a loan. 'Before they didn't use banks – sometimes they would bury their money under piles of oyster shells.' The involvement of the young will help, she thinks, they all speak English learned at school, for a start, and they know how to use technology. Our boatman takes us out on the river to follow the women in their canoes who are headed for the mangroves. After about a mile we find a place where the oysters are deemed big and plentiful enough. The women use a small axe to hack the oysters off the mangroves and they all sing as they do it and shout, and tease each other. They have a way of making everything into a party here. When one of the women drops her axe in the water they all stop to help her It is clear that being able to swim is crucial. 'Believe it or not, most of these women never knew how to swim,' says Khadija. 'There have been incidents of drowning that are never reported – they've seen family members washed away. It's not our culture here in the Gambia, but we explained the benefits – to keep safe, and how it would boost their productivity. 'However we had to get permission from spouses and community leaders in order to implement the training programme. We have seven female instructors in the navy. Some women did not mind being trained by men. Others were very conservative – so we divided them into groups accordingly. Some of the women are elderly, and the Navy trainers – who are all young – showed them respect and earned their trust before they started to teach them.' Several members of the Gambian Navy are waiting for us at Lamin the following day, for a swimming lesson, along with a medical team of three, who take people's blood pressures and listen to their hearts, to make sure it's safe for them to go into the water. If they find a problem, they will prescribe medicines. All statistics are carefully noted in a ledger by an army sergeant. In the river, a man and his children are washing the family goat. After the First Aid session about 20 of the the women – aged from 26 to 72 – all get ready for the river in a bizarre assortment of outfits, and the Navy instructors – mostly men but a couple of women – put them through a quick aerobic work out, led by 42 year old Ibrima Colley, who is extremely tall and fit. They jump in. Firstly they do floating exercises (the water is warm and buoyant and slightly salty as we are only three miles from the sea) looking like a bunch of slightly unruly synchronised swimmers, then there is some general stroke practise followed by a lifesaving demonstration and then a quick race. Funded by Fish4ACP, it's a six week programme, with four sessions a week. So far, 150 women have been trained – and more sessions are scheduled for October. Colley has been in the Navy for 19 years. 'We'll work whenever there is funding to employ us because we feel it's our social responsibility to share life saving skills with the people who are seafarers.' This reduces the demand for one of the Navy's other jobs – rescue operations. 'When I was a kid if we swam in the river, we would get flogged when we came home. Most of our parents couldn't swim so they were afraid of water. We would sneak to the river, then find some fresh water in a well and rinse ourselves so when we got home they couldn't tell that we'd been swimming.' Oyster season is about to draw to a close and James is preparing to leave. The goal is to be able to serve up the first raw oysters to tourists next year – on newly established National Oyster Day in May. In a country where the fish supplies have deteriorated and the population is growing, the oyster sector is increasingly important to the economy and the livelihood of women, and the Gambian model is paving the way in West Africa.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Alieu Fadera loaned to Sassuolo
Alieu Fadera loaned to Sassuolo Alieu Fadera has officially left Como on loan. The 23-year-old Gambian forward joins Sassuolo with a purchase option. Last season, Alieu Fadera didn't fully convince offensively (28 appearances and only one goal scored). This move to Sassuolo therefore represents a chance for him to revive his career. The objective is clear: regain efficiency and confidence. Now it's up to him to seize this opportunity and establish himself in Serie A for the long term.
Zawya
6 days ago
- Politics
- Zawya
Gambia Reiterates Support for Morocco's Sovereignty over Sahara, Fully Backs Autonomy plan as only Credible, Serious, and Realistic Solution
The Republic of Gambia reiterated its support for Morocco's sovereignty over the Sahara region and for the Autonomy Initiative as the only solution to the regional dispute over the Moroccan Sahara. This clear and consistent stance was reaffirmed in a joint communiqué issued following talks held Wednesday in Rabat between the Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates, Mr. Nasser Bourita, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Gambians Abroad, Sering Modou Njie. In the joint communiqué, the Gambian Foreign Minister "reaffirmed Gambia's support for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Kingdom of Morocco over its entire territory, including the Sahara region," and "reiterated the Republic of Gambia's full support for the Moroccan Autonomy Plan as the only credible, serious, and realistic solution to this issue." The Gambian Minister also "praised the growing international consensus, driven by His Majesty King Mohammed VI, in support of the Autonomy Plan and Morocco's sovereignty over its Sahara," while recalling "the opening of the Consulate General of the Republic of Gambia in Dakhla in January 2020", the first consulate general to open in Dakhla. Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Kingdom of Morocco - Ministry of Foreign Affairs, African Cooperation and Moroccan Expatriates.
France 24
7 days ago
- Politics
- France 24
Stigma haunts Gambians accused in state witch purge: study
Hundreds of people, many of them elderly women, were targeted under the eccentric west African dictator's 2008-2009 purge on witchcraft. The victims were taken to his compound and other secret locations where they were subjected to beatings, rape and forced to drink hallucinogenic concoctions. The episode created lasting psychological and social scars that endure not just for the victims but also their families and communities, according to a new study in the Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology. The research, funded by the United Nations Development Programme, involved interviews and surveys in the five communities most affected by Jammeh's witchcraft purges, located in western Gambia. Under the study, led by researcher Mick Finlay of the UK's Anglia Ruskin University and conducted in collaboration with the University of The Gambia and Nottingham Trent University, a total of 153 people were interviewed and 128 surveyed. Although many of the participants believed the witch hunts were organised to frighten people not to speak out against Jammeh (89 percent) or to create divisions (87 percent), a full quarter also believed the threat from witches was real, according to the research. To keep citizens in a permanent state of fear during his 22-year rule , Jammeh wielded a potent mix of brute force, mysticism and pervasive superstition -- including beliefs that Jammeh had supernatural powers. Belief in witchcraft has strong roots in The Gambia, particularly rural areas, where witches are said to cause illness, infertility, financial misfortune and death, and are additionally believed to eat children. The fact that the witchcraft accusations were state-orchestrated makes the situation unique, Finley told AFP. Normally, witchcraft accusations are "more gossip and rumour", he said in an interview. Against the state-backed nature of these witch hunts, victims felt the issue should be dealt with at the community or even government level. "The victims often said, you know, we want the government to come out and tell everybody that we are not witches," Finlay told AFP. There are "really simple things in terms of mending people's reputations that need to happen after dictatorships and war", Finlay added. A Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) to investigate human rights abuses carried out under Jammeh's rule between 1994 and 2017 recommended the establishment of a law making witchcraft accusations illegal. People 'avoid us' Approximately 41 deaths occurred during the witch hunts, with victims also suffering long-term health issues from being forced to drink toxic liquids, beatings and other abuse, according to the TRRC. Research for the new report, which was conducted in 2022, revealed that victims were the targets of shaming, mocking and gossip and often felt unable to attend traditional cultural events. "People tend to avoid us", one victim told the researchers. "We don't go their funerals or their naming ceremonies." Self-isolation was also reported, as was stigmatisation of victims' families, children and larger communities. To conduct the purges, Jammeh invited Guinean and Malian witch hunters into The Gambia, while his Green Boys and Girls vigilante group and the armed forces also helped carry out the roundups, according to the report. While the exact motivation behind the episode is unclear, Jammeh believed that witches had killed his aunt. Victims were taken to a compound in the southern village of Kanilai where Jammeh lived. There, they were generally held for several days while being forced to drink noxious liquid and sometimes bathe in an herbal concoction. Although a wide variety of community members were invited to participate in the survey, researchers said those comfortable with talking about stigmatisation could be over-represented, while those with a fear of witches could be under-represented. After losing an election to current President Adama Barrow in 2016, Jammeh fled The Gambia the following January for Equatorial Guinea.
France 24
7 days ago
- Health
- France 24
Gambians protest corruption following recent scandals
The protesters carried handwritten placards with slogans such as "Gambians are not slaves to corruption" as they chanted slogans such as "People! Power!" "We have been living under pillage and plunder for so long, and corruption is endemic in this country", Fallou Gallas Ceesay, program and administrative director for the youth movement Gambians Against Looted Assets (GALA), told AFP. The organisation, which staged the protest at Westfield Monument, a downtown landmark popular for demonstrations, said it was demanding accountability and calling on President Adama Barrow to tackle corruption. "We have seen so many investigations that have exposed a lot of alleged corruption in this country and the president is not doing anything about it", demonstrator Sucre Mike told AFP. The demonstrators presented petition letters to several government ministries, the office of the president and the National Assembly. One of the petitions, which was handed to the Ministry of Health, concerned some 70 children aged five and under who died in 2022 after taking an over-the-counter cough syrup made by India-based Maiden Pharmaceuticals. Another petition was delivered to the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy concerning a Russian oil deal in which government officials allegedly received kickbacks. "It's not only the youths who turned out today, it the entire country to ensure that corruption becomes the thing of the past", said GALA spokesman Omar Saibo. Among other points protested were financial scandals including Covid 19 funding and a Gambia Ports Authority embezzlement scheme. © 2025 AFP
