WIDOWS PROJECT – SECOND CHANCE
The widows' project arose after conducting interviews with women in order to collect material for the crowdfunding campaign "Help the women's cooperative of Baja Kunda to get a peanut peeling machine".
In the interviews, the widows showed a lot of concern for their situation and the future of their children, especially the young women who have all their children at school and cannot help them by working.
Polygamy is practiced in Gambia, so every time a man dies he leaves more than one widow and many children. Their situation is delicate since they depend on whether their husband's brothers want to marry them or if they have had male children, since then they can stay in the husband's Kunda (family units).
If they have only had daughters, they must leave the Kunda and return to their parents if they raise them or depend on the good will of neighbors or relatives.
In family economies, the man provides the rice, wheat, oil and meat, the rest must be provided by the woman, food, health, schooling... In a Kunda there are different women and if there are good relationship, they collaborate with each other, and they take turns cooking, on the day it's the widow's turn, she has to contribute everything, the part of the man and the woman, it's practically impossible, and she has to resort to beg, to ask for favors and to depend on others.
Faced with this situation, he considered what could be done to improve the quality of life of these women. Looking at the trades that women performed in the village, sales and cooking were the two trades outside the home and at the level of the visible economy that they could perform without changing any stereotypes and adapting to the market economy.
Baja Kunda is a town that has a lot of emigration and concentrated in Spain, but especially in Premià de Mar (Barcelona) this community is organized and they have some import businesses. Every month, month and a half, containers are sent and they offer us a space at low cost cost.
The idea of setting up a second-hand product store came about by combining the two needs, on the one hand the women can sell in the market without the need for permits and infrastructure and on the other the Gambian emigrants offer us the ability to transport materials at low cost cost .
There is a great demand for second-hand goods, clothes of all sizes, but especially children under 5 and babies, compact toys without parts, small furniture, shoes, mobiles and chargers, jewellery, kitchen, reading glasses, and of sun, bicycles, baby baths, and everything related to very young children.
Through a campaign the collection of clothes has already started, the idea is to carry out campaigns to collect clothing material to be sent to widows to sell.
The women's cooperative has expanded its warehouse for soap making and mango drying and can give one of the rooms to the widows to store the material.
They interviewed all the widows in the village in order to have a real list of the candidates to be part of the project and from the arrival of the first material they will start working. There will be groups of 20 people with a president and a secretary who will control sales shifts, attendance and payments at the end of more. A salary will be established per day worked and other projects that are in mind will be considered with the profits.
All ideas are good and welcome. Donations will be channeled through the volunteers and shipments will be made every quarter so that they have material at all times.
If you have donations or ideas, contact KORBIS AGRI and they will put you in touch with the nearest volunteer in your area.
Thank you very much for your collaboration
