By Kebba Ansu Manneh
The Mayor of Kanifing Municipal Council (KMC) has emphatically stated that his administration is very passionate about issues concerning environmental waste management, He said the Council will not relent in designing and implementing sustainable waste management policies and programs.
Lord Mayor Bensouda made this statement at the Council’s ground where he presided over the official handing over of the Building Climate Resilience through Sustainable Biodegradable Waste Management (WASTEAID) project to the Kanifing Environmental Transformation Project (KETP).
According to him, the WASTEAID project was launched last year with the view of building climate resilience through Sustainable Biodegradable Waste Management in the Kanifing Municipality, noting that during the launch of the project Council promised to augment the capacity of women gardeners within the region on compose and brick making for sustainable livelihoods.
“We are really excited to announce that the project has effectively produced compose for the targeted individuals and am sure the women are feeling the benefit.
The project also trained women on how to make bio-brickades which is providing an alternative for the unsustainable use of forest trees for charcoal,” KMC Mayor disclosed.
He added: “I am very much pleased to announce that I recently visited the women’s garden in Bakau and have seen how much work our women are doing on the project.”
Mayor Bensouda continued to reveal that KMC will use its own agriculture budget to buy farming implements for the women of the municipality to ease their work while expressing his happiness to receive compose and bio-brickades from the project depicting the hard work accomplished by the project.
He commended the project officials of the WASTEAID Project for successfully implementing the pilot project for the benefit of the women in the municipality while assuring a smooth handing over of the project to the Kanifing Environmental Transformation Project that has similar aims and objectives to the faced-out project.
Madam Ingrid, WASTEAID Project Coordinator disclosed that the project has successfully trained a total of thirty (30) women drawn from Bakoteh and Bakau women gardens, noting that these women have been trained on compose making and biobrikades making with the view to minimizing dependence on artificial fertilizers and the forest trees.
She added that the project has equally trained more than seventy (70) market women from Abuko and Jeshwang on waste segregation and management these women now acquired the requisite skills to segregate waste that they eventually used for compose making for onward use in their gardens.
Madam Ingrid further highlighted that the project has built a foundation for change in waste management within the KMC, noting that many of the beneficiaries have now realised the importance of waste management and how to better managed the environment for sustainable living.
“We hope that by transferring this project under the KETP project it will avail more opportunities for more women to be trained on how they can act on their environment for sustainable living. This is an opportunity to create a culture of waste segregation from the grassroots levels, from the markets,” WASTEAID Project Coordinator highlighted.
Others speakers at the event included officials of the Kanifing Municipality Council, market women, and the European Union, who are bankrolling the KETP project.
