A group of oyster collectors in Fajikunda recently came together as one family through the initiative of Mrs Fatou Mboob Janha.

The newly formed association is called the Try Oyster Women Association Fajikunda. According to the initiators, the objective of the association is to not only improve the living standards of member but to also increase their productivity. Speaking to the Women’s Weekly columnist, Fatou Mboob disclosed that she has helped to mobilise many other groups of women including those selling cakes. She added that coming together as one group will help them in whatever they are doing, and that her aim is to see these women trained and sensitised.

Mboob recalled her work with the women at Camalo, along the Banjul/Serrekunda highway, noting that their standards are now very much improved, as they now have uniforms, their processing centre is very clean and well organised. This, she said, will attract customers to come and buy from them. She also revealed that each of those women now has a bank account and that the association itself has a bank account which can help in case of emergencies. This could also, she pointed out, be achieve in Fajikunda.

She went further to indicate that their annual oyster festival is in the pipeline. She noted that the purpose of the annual event is to raise funds for the women. Mboob further thanked the women for putting trust their trust in her and promised that she will do all she can to help them. “I am appealing to the government, philanthropists, NGO, institutions, and individuals to come to the aid of these women as they really need help, especially when the oyster season ends. They will need any good job that comes their way,” she urged.

For her part, Amie Jatta, the president of the association, revealed that their occupation is very difficult, as they will spend the whole day and night collecting oysters and will come back with little or no oyster. But this does not discourage, she said.  “We also encounter many dangers at sea; we are sometimes attacked by criminals and we want the government to help us with these criminals,” she said. Processing the oysters, she said, is also difficult and they use the boiling method. According to her, most people prefer the grilled method because it produces more delicious oysters than the boiled method. The grilled method, she continues, is not easy and is also not good for their health so they had to stop it.

According to Jatta, after all this hardship, they sell one cup of oysters for D10, which cannot sustain them and their families. Selling, she said, is also not easy because they don’t have a specific place in the market and sometimes go from compound to compound to sell.  She added that they don’t have enough boats to go to sea and when the oyster season closes, they go for domestic jobs until the seasons starts again. These jobs, she stated, are difficult to come by and they have many responsibilities especially to pay their children’s school fees.

She said that these are the reasons why they called on Fatou to help them and also sensitise them like what she does with the other group at Camalo. “We the Try Oyster Women Association Fajikunda are appealing to the government, philanthropists, NGOs, institutions, and individuals to come to our aid and to help us with money so that when the season closes, we can engage ourselves in business until the season opens again.

We need a space in the market and also boats for us to go to sea,” she concluded. After the programme, this reporter was shown how oysters are collected from the mangrove the processing method used. B