near the Fishermen's Association building In Bargal District,in Puntland state in northeastern Somalia, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has trained the most vulnerable women how to dry fish by exposing them to sun for consumption and income.
It has also taught them new skills to help their communities gain access to nutritious food.
A group of 18 women benefited from this eight-days training and included important topics including fish cleaning, processing, drying using sustainable and environmentally friendly methods.
FAO provided training and all tools and equipment from knives to drying tables .
Every morning, women gather around tables with fish and roll up their sleeves in preparation for work
Safia Mohamed Takare explains the drying process and says that first of all, water is brought and mixed with chlorine to wash tables and knives. Everything should be perfectly clean.
Then some women start cutting and cleaning the fish. Cleaned fish pieces are passed on to another group of women. Meanwhile, a group of women prepare and clean drying tables, and then women put clean fish pieces on the shelves to dry them. It needs a whole day to dry. But they cannot be left to dry on their own. Women stand to guard the fish shelves.
Zubair Abdullah Saleh, a training program official, added that dried fish can be kept for up to six months without having to be refrigerated.
He added that they have conducted similar taring workshops to a group of women in the areas of Gumbah and Hafun
Although Somalia has the longest coastline in Africa, the country's fishing sector is one of the least developed in the world, contributing only about 1 percent of GDP.
Coastal communities are among the most food insecure in Somalia & need more of these training programs in larger numbers.
SomaliVoice
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