As a young, female, high school dropout from a refugee family, Isatou Ceesay was seen in Njau as the least capable person to lead an organisation. “[My father’s family] are refugees from Mali who settled in The Gambia,” Isatou recalls. “Because of the culture, the community treated us as the minority and some even said, “a slave should be a slave”. It was something that I definitely worked so hard and climbed so hard to make a change for.” At the time, women were also not allowed to be leaders on any local or wider government council; even in their own homes they were discouraged from handling money or making decisions. Isatou stood at the edge of the village and looked at the ugly heap of rubbish piled high on the red earth. Amongst the discarded tins, food and bike tyres, one thing stood out: there were plastic bags everywhere. Mosquitoes swarmed above murky puddles of water pooled on bags on the ground. Two of her neighbour’s goats perched on the rubbish, foraging for food. She shooed them away. Isatou had heard that many people’s goats had died recently. When the butcher cut them open, he had found plastic knotted in their stomachs. Today, from the five [original] women, we are supporting 75 communities, and more than 5,000 women and youths directly who benefit from our organisation,” Isatou proudly states. “If you have a few people who believe what you believe, you can make a big impact. So, we are calling the whole world to come, and we join together to build the next generation.”

The women continued with their tiny business, now also making shoulder bags and cosmetic purses from plarn. Many of them were earning money for the first time, and they were able to use it to buy food to help their families through the ‘hungry gap’ – the three months in the year when there were few crops from their farmland. Their husbands noticed how their family’s lives were improving and encouraged their wives in their purse-making. The women no longer worked in secret, and soon others joined them. Within a year, Isatou’s community recycling project had grown to 50 women and she named it the N’jau Recycling and Income Generation Group (NRIGG). Remember, if you’re planning a trip to the Gambia, West Africa—ask your tour operator for the unique chance to meet the women of Njau and stay in the village. The initiative’s director, Isatou Ceesay, who recently completed a tour of the US promoting her children’s book on recycling, passionately believes that waste reprocessing offers women a route to economic empowerment. It is women who are in charge of waste and they are dedicated to their communities, and can really contribute a lot Isatou Ceesay, Women's Initiative – The Gambia Isatou’s sister had taught her how to crochet, and this gave her an idea for how to upcycle the plastic bags that were causing so many problems – changing them from waste into something valuable. She would turn them into purses that could be sold to make money. Isatou persuaded five friends to join her to form a new women’s group, and together they collected bags from the rubbish pile, washed them and dried them out. Then, that first afternoon beneath the tree, they carefully cut each bag into a long continuous thread of plastic several centimetres wide – called ‘plarn’, or plastic yarn. With this, they started to crochet small purses for coins, using different coloured plarn to add pretty patterns. It took eight hours or more to make one purse and it used up around 10 plastic bags. The women were delighted with what they had made. Silver: Lee and Low Books * Chronicle Books * Capstone Young Readers * Tuttle Publishing * NY Media Works LLC/KidLit TVThe women, in those days, they were using the bags to light fires when they wanted to cook, especially during the rainy season when all of our firewood was wet. Miranda is a teacher and children’s author. She first traveled to Gambia in 2003 as a teacher and discovered Isatou’s project. Twelve years and five trips later, her research and collaboration finally brought the finished book to the world. “Through interviewing the women of Njau I learned the importance of determination and confidence when working on something worthwhile.” Miranda currently spends her days writing new books, traveling, raising butterflies and foster animals, and speaking at schools. Learn how to invite her to your classroom at www.MirandaPaul.com. TIAW World of Difference 100 Award Winners 2012" (PDF). The International Alliance for Women. 2012 . Retrieved 2019-11-01. [ permanent dead link] In keeping with the spirit of the project, the trainees decided to call themselves Fay Fengo Nafaa-Siyata, which means “making waste useful” in the Mandinka language.The training gives hard-working women another option as they struggle to earn enough money for their families.

It was 1997, and 25-year-old Isatou Ceesay was taking a walk through her village of N’jau in the centre of the Gambia – the smallest country in Africa. As she turned down the dusty main street, women greeted her from their courtyards as they prepared vegetables and washed clothes. The smell of familiar dishes filled the air. Children played in a clearing by the forest, and cows grazed near a field of peanuts. Later that afternoon, she sat with five friends in the shade of a tree for the first meeting of her women’s group. Let’s hope their time has come and they can move on from their position of poverty and powerlessness. But for this to happen the richer echelons of society who dominate politics in many of these countries, need to be replaced by individuals who put the good of their communities before the privileged few. A belief that applies equally here in the West! When we learn as mothers, we can teach our children how to have a better life. Not everyone can work in an office. This is something you can do for yourself, and your family will grow up with this system.” A young woman, Isatou discovers that plastic bags are being used more and more in her village- and being tossed aside, littering the ground. Isatou Ceesay was named Queen of Recycling when she started the recycling movement in Gambia called: One Plastic Bag.In the U.S., most communities have trash and recycling services that help us deal with waste. But what if there were no such services? Imagine the piles of trash that would accumulate. This is exactly the situation in Gambia, Africa. But Isatou Ceesay sees solutions where others see only problems. Isatou: Before I started this work, everywhere you would find plastic bags flying all over the environment. But Isatou wanted to find more ways to share her knowledge and help people in her village. In 2000, she got a job as a language and culture helper with the Peace Corps and, through this, she helped to secure funding to build a skill centre in N’jau, where the women could meet and work together. Here they could learn about the importance of caring for their environment and about the dangers of burning plastic. Isatou started to teach classes on subjects such as gardening, soap making and tie-dying, and the women were able to sell many of the things they made. She had learned about nutrition and gave cooking demonstrations on how to prepare meals full of vitamins and minerals to keep their children healthy.