Page 81 - EarthHeroes

in what she was doing. She loved helping others and relished a challenge.
In her family, everyone had always worked together to solve problems, and her mother had been a great inspiration to her. In the Gambia, many girls were unable to finish school because they were needed at home to help their mothers. Isatou wanted women to have the chance to learn skills and to earn money, even if they had not been given the chance to finish their education.
Some men did not like to see the women working beneath the tree. Women were expected to take care of their homes and families while the men went out to work, and these men were afraid that the women would learn to no longer obey their husbands. Isatou moved the meetings to her house, where she and her friends could gather at night to chat and crochet purses by candlelight. They worked secretly for months until they had enough purses. Then Isatou took these to a market in the city and managed to sell them all – the city women loved them because they were so unusual.
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
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