By Foday Moriba Conteh
During a very impressive event that was held at the at Kent community Hall in Western Rural Area on the 26th June 2021, the Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Affairs distributed start-up kits to 100 (one hundred) women from Kent and Banana Island under the Ministry’s Women Empowerment Project for Touristic and Coastal Communities with support from UNDP.
Haja Njai, Tourist Officer of the Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, explaining the overview of the project said it aims at imparting alternative livelihood skills to these women. She noted that they have trained these women on arts and crafts and entrepreneurship skills for which the Minister was at the event to give them business start-up kits.
She highlighted how they do not want to replace the fishing and stone mining that the women are engaged in, but to provide them with skills that can suffice when their fishing and stone mining are not yielding dividends.
Dr. Memunatu Pratt, Minister of Tourism and Cultural Affairs, in her statement, expressed excitement to see the women that were trained by the Ministry converging in order to receive start-up kits in order to sharpen their skills. She assured the women that more women would benefit in subsequent programmes implemented by the Ministry. She said the Ministry has been to Pujehun, Bonthe, Mattru Jong, Kamakwie and Kabala but women of Kent and Banana Island occupy a special place because they are the first recipients.
She mentioned that COVID-19 has imposed enormous hardship on the tourism sector because of the various restrictions imposed on people and travel, but the Ministry has done a lot in cushioning the burden on women in the tourism sector.
The Minister called on the women to get the sector going by keeping the environment intact and further disclosed that there are plans to encourage more hotels in Kent and that for Banana Island the Ministry is constructing eco-lodges and other facilities and also getting a jetty for Banana Island.
Chairladies from both Kent and Banana Island thanked the Minister for the support, assuring that they will positively make the most out of the opportunity.
