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Plastic waste is now being turned into cash thanks to Isatu Ceesay’s entrepreneurial vision. His organization, Women’s Initiative Gambia, empowers women to improve their economic situation.
As LifeGate details, Isatou was inspired to do something about the trash in Njau village after seeing it negatively impacting the community.
“One day, I was standing on the edge of a village, staring at an ugly pile of trash piled high against the red earth. Among the discarded cans, groceries, and bicycle tires, I found one thing. It caught my eye. I saw a lot of plastic bags. Everywhere,” Isatou told the outlet, explaining how this problem also caused other problems.
“Mosquitoes were swarming on the murky puddles that had collected between the bags on the ground. Some of the goats in the neighborhood were scavenging in the garbage dump… A few years ago, a butcher had found a I found a plastic bag tied in a knot,” she added.
Plastic pollution is a huge problem around the world, and innovators are working to solve it. To solve a domestic problem, Isato and four friends began collecting plastic bags from garbage heaps on the outskirts of their village, and crocheted strips of the material into new bags that were both practical and bright. I did.
“Others made fun of us, but we never gave up. We just pushed through, knowing we were doing it for a good cause,” Isato told Lifegate. .
In 1997, thanks to Isatou and four other women, the Njau Recycling Center was born with the mission of educating the community about the benefits of recycling plastic, most of which would otherwise end up in a landfill.
Thanks to Isatou’s vision and efforts, this project has now grown into Women’s Initiative Gambia (WIG), a series of ongoing initiatives to clean up the environment and help improve the living standards of poor women’s families in The Gambia. We are doing
Other projects supported by WIG include community gardening and food preservation to prevent vegetables from rotting, a process that releases methane, a powerful heat-trapping gas. Other recycling initiatives are planned as well.
According to WIG’s official website, women who work at WIG are “trained in income-generating skills, leadership skills, and decision-making skills, so they have a say in their own development.”
“The life lesson I would like to share is that dropping out of school does not mean the end of a girl’s life dreams.Education drives a person to achieve their dreams, but it does not make it possible. “It’s a person’s willpower and belief in themselves that makes all the difference,” Isato said in a statement to WIG.
Isato, co-author of One Plastic Bag, a children’s book aimed at raising awareness about plastic waste and recycling, received the World of Difference Award from the International Union of Women in 2012.
She was also recognized by media company Green Matters in 2016 for her pioneering efforts to protect the planet, and WIG received the Energy Globe National Award in the same year.
“Believe in yourself, believe in what you want in life, and go for it. Be prepared to persevere in the face of adversity, and success will be yours,” Isato says. added in a statement on WIG’s website.
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