The five day Workshop on Gender Awareness and Issues in Artisanal Fisheries, organized for Fisheries personnel and extension agents at the Management Development Institute (MDI), was conducted in collaboration with IDAF/FAO and the Ministry of Agriculture and Natural Resources.
The objective of this Workshop is to:
- sensitize the target group to gender issues in the sector
- come up with gender sensitive plans and programmes for effective implementation
- apply gender analysis for future plans and policies
The Workshop participants were drawn from the Departments of Fisheries and Community Development, and Tango (The Association of Non-Governmental Organisations), with women constituting 45°/0.
The Opening Ceremony was attended by the F.A.O Representative in The Gambia, Mrs Florence Chenoweth, who in her remarks recognized the important role the Department of Fisheries is playing in addressing the roles of women in the fisheries sector and FAO's commitment to the empowerment of women in this sector.
The IDAF Programme Co-ordinator, and a Resource Person in the Workshop, Mr. B.P. Satia in his remark, asserted that changes in the understanding of Women-In-Development is affecting the policy approach for women He underscored the most significant changes and theoretical perspective of women's triple roles in production, reproduction and community managing work. He also stressed IDAF's interest in downstream activities of the Artisanal Fisheries Sector and Community Development activities in the fisheries sector.
The Director of Fisheries in his opening remarks stressed among other things that national governments adopt and implement policies to attain the total emancipation of African women.
Guest Lecturers were drawn from IDAF, namely Dr. Ben P. Satia, and Mr. Alhaji Jallow, who looked at the role of IDAF in strengthening the fisheries sector and gender sensitive measures in the fisheries sector respectively.
Mr. Ousman Drammeh, Director of Fisheries and Mr Momodou Njie, respectively spoke on current gender sensitive vision in the fisheries sector and gender issues in fisheries sector and effective participation.
Mr. Mamanding Kuyateh, Director of Community Development, dwelt on community participation, Dr. Ogun and Dr. Sasi NDure (from MDI) the Managerial Roles and Responsibilities and leadership respectively. A gender specialist of the MDI, who co-ordinated the workshop, spoke on gender issues in development strategies.
REGISTRATION
A registration form was issued to each of the participants to fill at the beginning of the 5 day Gender Awareness Sensitization Workshop. On this form they recorded their academic background, present position, duties, understanding of the workshop theme, and expectations from the workshop.
18 participants attended, 15 from the Fisheries Department (including I fish smoker from the Gunjur Fisheries Centre) and 3 from the Department of Community Development.
All the participants are secondary school graduates with work experience and some on the job or higher specialized training.
They realised their role as development agents and expected to gain additional knowledge and skills that would facilitate their task of mobilizing and organizing the fishing communities on gender awareness issues.
END OF WORKSHOP EVALUATION
Being the first time such a workshop was held at the Institute, it was felt necessary to invite comments that will improve the succeeding workshops. The following comments were received.
Expectations
13 were satisfied
3 felt that it surpassed their expectations
2 felt that it did not satisfy their expectations
Length of Workshop
12 excellent
5 just long enough
1 too long
Workshop goals and objectives
All participants agreed that the goals and objectives of the workshop have been attained.
Awareness of gender issues
At the beginning of the workshop only 5 people expressed a knowledge of the issues. But at the end all of them confessed to an excellent understanding of the gender issues.
Subject area coverage
6 more time should have been spent on all the topics
6 more time should have been spent on community participation
4 more time should have been spent on gender
2 no response.
4 of them mentioned statistics as a useful subject that should have been covered, and I mentioned sociology because of their work with communities.
General Comments
The coordination of the workshop and the presentation of the resource persons were appreciated by the participants. They expressed a desire to have such programmes regularly and community based ones that can be supported by donors and national authorities
Methodology
The workshop was organized in the form of paper presentations, discussions, group work, and plenary sessions. It was concluded with certificate presentation to the participants.
LIST OF PARTICIPANTS | |||
NO. |
NAME |
TITLE |
DEPT. |
1 |
Babanding Kanyi |
Fisheries Field Assistant |
Fisheries |
2. |
Nurudeen Gillen |
Fisheries Field Assistant |
Fisheries |
3. |
Aishatou L. Badjan |
Fisheries Field Assistant |
Fisheries |
4. |
Fatou Corr |
Fisheries Field Assistant |
Fisheries |
5. |
Suntukung Sawo |
Fisheries Trainee Assistant |
Fisheries |
6. |
Bintou Kolley |
Fisheries Field Assistant |
Fisheries |
7. |
Yusupha Jassey |
Principal Fisheries Assistant |
Fisheries |
8. |
Salifu Bojang |
Principal Fisheries Assistant |
Fisheries |
9. |
Janko A. Sisay |
Fisheries Field Assistant |
Fisheries |
10. |
Bintou Jarju |
Fish Smoker Gunjur |
Fisheries Project |
11. |
Ellen Njie |
Trainee fisheries Assistant |
Fisheries |
12. |
Ramatoulie K. Mbye |
Trainee Fisheries Assistant |
Bakau Fisheries |
13. |
Almami Drammeh |
Prin. Fisheries Assistant |
Fisheries |
14. |
Mustapha Touray |
Prin. Fisheries Assistant |
Fisheries |
15. |
Janko Bojang |
Prin. Fisheries Assistant |
Fisheries |
16. |
Mansata Sanneh |
Community Devt. Asst. |
Comm. Devt. |
17. |
Fatou Sanneh-Jobarteh |
Home Craft Asst. |
Comm. Devt. |
18. |
Rohey Faal |
Community Devt. Asst. |
Comm. Devt. |
