Kombo Coastal Women’s Kafo Cry for Help
Friday 18th January 2008

If strong hardworking women who struggle to make a living need to be commended, I think women of the Kombo Coastal area should be the first for that honour. Imagine these women leave their families early in the morning for commercial gardening, fish processing, selling at markets etc.

Some of them stay at the seaside till late night waiting the boats to bring in their catch. I once visited one such fishing port where I came across a group of women who called themselves "Hajojara Kafo" doing different types of work. In an interview with their president, Sibi Jaiteh, she disclosed that their Kafo (association) had been in existence for almost twenty-eight years.

On the benefits they gain out of their work, she noted that for her personally, she educated three of her sons, from the money gained from fishing. "In those earlier days we got a lot of money out of fishing but now every thing is hard, that’s why we nowadays work gardens also, so that when we are not busy on the fishing side we derive income from our gardens."

Sibi added that they sometimes get a basket of fish for D1500. 00 which they will resell at the market, and use some for the processing of smoked fish. And in fish smoking, she said, they would have to buy a bundle of firewood for D20.00.

On the constraints they encounter, Sibi said they encounter a lot, because when there is shortage of fish, she said the price is always expensive "for example these days many fishermen don’t go far looking for fish because of exorbitant fuel cost .So in such case they feel afraid to go too far." Another point she raised is that they used to have places at the markets but she revealed all those places have now been converted to small canteens and allocated to Senegalese and others, "and now that we don’t have a place to sell the only option we have is to give our goods to middle men from other countries."

Sibi however appeals to government, NGOs, and individuals, to give them assistance,  "we need a factory where we can keep our vegetables, and spots in the markets where to sell, or help us with contacts outside which can help us to export our goods, because our association doesn’t have any benefits like loans from any organization or Government; we used to have benefit from GAWFA but now that assistance stopped after the passing away of our secretary." Sibi finally advised women to come out in their thousands and work hard in order to make things easy with the men’s contribution, as they are partners.

According to Kaddy Gibba a member of Hajojara Kafo being a graduate doesn’t mean that one should not engage in such work; for her, she said she is a graduate but decided to involve in fishing as not all educated persons can be working in offices. "I have been working here for six years, I used to gain a lot from fisheries, because I do help my younger brothers and sisters with clothing and school financial problems, but now every thing has changed and our main problem is marketing. We are appealing to government to help us in that regard," she summed with emphasis.