The  Equigambia Association is  an organisation that was set-up to improve the skills of young tailors and dyers (batik, tie and dye) and help  women to create their own independent businesses and find markets for their products, within and outside The Gambia.

This week, Observer Women’s Weekly  deems it necessary to introduce these dynamic young women who are contributing immensely to the socio-economic development of the country.

In an interview with Women’s Weekly at their showroom in Kololi, Mrs Amie Puye Ceesay, the sales assistant of Equigambia, said she is a young Gambian woman of 28 years old, born and brought up in Kololi. She attended Bakoteh Primary School, Kotu Junior and  Senior Secondary School, from where she proceeded to Kololi Women Skills Centre.

She added that she  joined Equigambia in order to improve her skills.  “As you can see, all these people are young women who come together to work in order to help themselves, their families and also to contribute to the socio-economic development of the country,” she said.

Mrs Ceesay disclosed that the project is based on the internationally recognised principles of fair trade and the main product, the Equigambia collection, is a range of beautiful and relatively inexpensive garments and accessories for women, men and children.

To achieve their purpose, she explained, the Equigambia project is divided into three separate sections and these are: A training centre to improve skills in the sewing, tie and dye and batik arts; productive activities whereby the dyers and tailors produce designs from the Equigambia collection for the association and a commercial section to sell the items.

The association is managed like a co-operative and selling is done mainly at trade fairs, to tourists, expatriates and Gambians, fashion shows in hotels and various other events.

She further stated that, at Equigambia all the accounts are transparent and the whole enterprise is audited by an approved accountant, to ensure that everything conforms to the principles of fair trade.

She added that, the association also trains young girls, who are school drop-outs or from others skill centres.
She disclosed that most of their customers are tourists and they make bigger sales during the tourist season.

“I, therefore, on behalf of all our members called on the government of The Gambia to come to our aid and Gambians to patronise us as we are young Gambian women working together to develop our country,” she appealed.

Mrs Amie Puye Ceesay called on young girls to venture into business.
Most of the products at the Equigambia showroom have local names like Jainaba (long dress, large size), Banjul (sun dress, one size), wengaloo (bias cut dress, two colors without zip), Farafenni (beach bag), capanita (Sambakuko hat with velcro).
In conclusion, she thanked the Association of Small Scale Enterprises in Tourism (ASSET), for their support.

This week, the mistress of the Observer Women’s weekly column deems it necessary to introduce yet another dynamic, visionary and exemplary woman in the country who is immensely contributing to the socio-economic development of the country. This is no other exemplary women than Aunty Haddy John, a veteran food processor, born in 1942 in Primet Street, Banjul who specialised in producing agro food products for over four decades for consumption and export.

She attended Girls High School in Banjul from 1947 to 1954 and Wesley High School. She later proceeded to the School of Nursing in Banjul before being employed at the RVH.

In a chat with Women’s weekly, Aunty Haddy, who’s dream is to open a factory for processing commodities in the country called on government to assist the women who engaged themselves in producing agro food products in The Gambia.

According to her, she started business in 1967 by selling fish-balls, debe-meat in sticks, coconut cakes, ice and groundnut cakes, which she sold at Sir Dawda Primary School. She added that in 1969, she extended her business in her husband’s shop at 41 Allen Street in Banjul, were she increase her food stuffs with coconut cakes, fish and chips and chicken gravy. “In 1993, I joined the Association of Gambia Entrepreneurs (AGE) which helped me to improve my skills and knowledge in handling her small scale business” she said.

Aunty Haddy further stated that she was very opportune to attend a trainee course for 2 weeks at Wellingara, on behalf of AGE and the training was on cereals products, noting that they were brainstormed on how to use various type of cereals to make corn and millet in flour, coos -coos, rice and winning food for children.

“Thanks to the help of the association, I am now an entrepreneur of AGE, Food and Nutrition Unit (FNU) for many country”. she said

Training of trainers at Yundum, she said, increased her knowledge in using the various ways of making corn to sorghum. This she said, included flour and coarse grains of the corn plus sorghum. She added that, in the training, she also learnt how to cook them in different dishes such as foo-foo and soup, pan-cake and doughnuts, neleng, benachin, mbahal and chakri and also packing them, distribute it for sales at various

supermarkets. “Through this training, I was also privilege to gain knowledge of how to make various dishes which greatly assist me in meeting my family needs” she said.

In order to diversify, she also processes the corn and sorghum and packed them to the supermarket for sale. “I now have all these skills but my main constrain is financial support as I need capital to buy the necessary equipment to expand my business. I am therefore to appealing to government, NGOs, and other institutions to assist me to reach my vision and to achieve my goals.

According to some reports, the 150-metre multipurpose cargo vessel, the An Yue Jiang - registered in China and one of 600 vessels owned by the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), dubbed by South African media as the "Ship of Shame" - is now en route to the Angolan capital of Luanda, while others said it was bound for Mozambique's second city, Beira, and another said China had ordered the vessel to return home.

The ship was denied entrance to Durban by the collective efforts of a news magazine editor, Martin Welz, who warned of the ship's impending arrival, industrial action by members of the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, who said they would not unload the cargo, and the Southern African Litigation Centre, which obtained a High Court order on 18 April, prohibiting passage of the weapons across South African soil.

Mark Hankey, marketing director of the Maritime Intelligence Unit of the international insurer, Lloyds, told IRIN the An Yue Jiang had been listed as a casualty, an umbrella term used for a variety of eventualities, but in this instance referring to its failure to deliver its cargo to the intended destination.

Hankey said according to the latest information they had, the ship was heading for Beira. Mozambique reportedly said the ship would not be allowed into its waters, while Filomeno Mendonca, director of the Institute of Angolan Ports, told the private Angolan radio station, Luanda Radio LAC: "This ship has not sought a request to enter Angolan territorial waters and is not authorised to enter Angolan ports."

Isaak Hamata, spokesman for Namibia's foreign affairs, reportedly said: "We have not received any official request to dock, refuel or off-load the Chinese ship, but if it does come, we would consider it on its merits."

Nastasya Tay, of the Centre for Chinese Studies in Johannesburg, told IRIN that according to her sources, COSCO was considering recalling the ship for commercial reasons, "as it cannot go on just sailing around Africa and hope to dock somewhere".

Landlocked

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country in southern Africa and requires the cooperation of at least a second country if the arms shipment is to be delivered.
The South African government, however, voiced no objections to the ship unloading its cargo, which, according to local media reports, comprised millions of rounds of small arms ammunition, mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades.

Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa, chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional body, was quoted by Zambian media on 22 April as saying that "I am glad that South Africa has refused them [although it was civil society that thwarted it] ... and I hope that will be the case" with all other countries.

"We don't want to escalate the situation in Zimbabwe more than what it is," said Mwanawasa, who, before becoming chair of the regional body, described Zimbabwe as a "sinking titanic."

South African President Thabo Mbeki, appointed in 2007 by SADC to mediate between President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF government and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has been accused of a partisan attitude towards Mugabe since Zimbabwe's 29 March elections.

Mbeki, on his way to a recent emergency SADC summit in the Zambian capital of Lusaka, infuriated the MDC when he announced that there was "no crisis" in Zimbabwe.

The results of the presidential election have yet to be released, more than three weeks after the event. The MDC claim their leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, won the poll by the required 50 percent plus one vote; if accurate, this would negate a second round of voting for the presidency.

The MDC and civil society have said that since ZANU-PF lost control of parliament in the election - although the ruling party has ordered a recount in 23 constituencies - Mugabe's soldiers and youth militia have unleashed a reign of terror in rural areas.

Weapons to suppress opposition

ZANU-PF has claimed that there was no clear winner in the presidential ballot and a second round of voting was necessary. The MDC said 10 of its supporters had been killed since the poll, and hundreds injured in a campaign dubbed "Operation Mavhoterapapi" (Who did you vote?). The MDC alleges that campaign is designed to intimidate people to vote for Mugabe in a run-off vote.

Amid reports that ammunition stocks in Zimbabwe's armed forces are running low, the MDC and civil society fear the shipment of weapons could be used in a military clampdown to extend Mugabe's 28 years in power.

US State Department spokesman Tom Casey said Washington had asked Beijing "to refrain from making additional shipments and, if possible, to bring this one back," according to international media reports.

"We don't think that under the present circumstances, given the current political crisis in Zimbabwe, that now is the time for anyone to be increasing the number of weapons and armaments available in that country," Casey said.

China's foreign ministry spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told media in China the shipment was part of "normal military product trade between the two countries," and then said: "As far as I know, the carrier is now considering carrying back the cargo."

Visitors at the ceremony were being encouraged to buy scratch cards called “instant lotto” on one of which the young man had bagged his prize.

Speaking at the ceremony the Marketing Manager of GNL, Mr. Fabakary Touray, said that the winning products from GNL know no bounds.

He said that GNL has taken cognisance of the social agenda they have taken with their customers especially in rural areas. He added that the Kaur presentation is a clear manifestation of this reality.

He finally urged the visitors to continue patronising GNL and promised the company will continue to expand their winning products.

Mr. Najie Bai Cham, the senior Marketing Assistant in Farafenni, expressed his delight at the gathering.

The winner, Mr Baba Touray, said that he is young and attending school so he wishes to use to money to further his education.

On behalf of GNL management, the senior sales representative of Kaur, Mr. Adama Njie, presented the cash prize to Mrs. Fatou Kah, the winner’s mother.

Village elders and a cross section of society attended the ceremony.

In the previous article, we discussed how blogs can help you generate traffic for your main website. But what if you don’t have another site? Or what if you want your blog to be your main website, the exclusive carrier of your money making ventures?

This can be achieved, of course. Such is the versatility of web logs.

Standalone blogs are best utilized for online businessmen or women who have decided to pursue what many people call as nicheing. Yes, the word is ungrammatical, but it is a term that many Internet marketers have come to embrace with fondness. Nicheing involves the creation of many sites that cater to particular niches. Niches, of course, are very specialized markets, most of which are so obscure that they do not garner the attention of businesses, hence creating high demands with low supplies. The purpose of nicheing is to find these markets and provide for their needs. These enterprising businessmen would earn through the following ways:

* Creating and eventually selling products that aim to serve the said niches.

* Selling existing products that the said niches need.

* Providing for information that the members of the said niches can access for free, and enrolling the site that contains the information in a Pay Per Click (PPC) program like Google AdSense.

Regardless of what path the online entrepreneur decides to take, he should first create a site that serves as the repository of his commercial methods. Niches can be very rewarding. Since there is but a few competitions in the field, your search engine placement is sure to be higher than usual. Traffic should also be at a sustainable level since the members of a niche have nothing else to visit. This will mean a greater possibility for more sales, if you’re selling a product, or a higher Click Through Rate (CTR) if you’re enrolled in a PPC program.

Now, making a site can be quite cumbersome. You have to deal with the aspects of web design, graphic creation, and content writing among other concerns. What more when you have to create numerous sites for numerous niches?

Thankfully, blogs will make things a whole lot easier for you. Every online marketer who has attained success with niche marketing can attribute this to their proper exploitation of blogs. Whereas it would take you a couple of weeks to come up with 10 websites, it would only take you a couple of hours to come up with 10 blog sites. The sheer convenience and ease of web logs have made nicheing a very potent business model.

Blogs can very much substitute for a regular website. As we have previously discussed, high quality content is, ultimately, what will drive traffic to your site, and this kind of content can easily be carried through a blog. Also, you don’t have to change the entire page whenever you want to update your content, as you would with a regular website. With blogs, all you have to do is to write your update in a designated box and press the publish button. Of course, different blogging software have various features, but none comes more loaded than Wordpress (www.wordpress.com).

Blogging is the way to go if you want to create, and maintain, several niche sites. And Wordpress is the weapon of choice for most Internet marketers. To fully realize the potentials of the medium, therefore, you should be able to exploit all the features that Wordpress does offer. Again, David Pankhurst’s excellent report on powerful Wordpress secrets (http://www.malkeenan.com/top10tricks) will help you excel in this area.

Look out for the next article, where we’re going to discuss how you could efficiently integrate the Google AdSense program into your blog, and make it a passive income generating machine.

For More Free Resources visit www.freeearningtips.com

This season, if you have receive a new computer or new software, check em for the gifts you might not know about. Many computers come with bundled software that includes Adware, Malware and even Spyware. You may not find it until you launch the software program. It may give you a message that says it needs to connect to a site to complete the registration. Make sure you read the entire license agreement.

I know of many stories about how a user had to do a complete restore on their new computer just days after getting it. These stories involve the user spending hours on the phone with customer support trying to resolve the problem. In previous years, Dells customer support has been swamped after the holidays with calls from new users asking for help. Before you get online with the new computer, insure the AntiVirus and Firewall is functioning. The computer will probably prompt you that it needs to get updates. Check what the update is before agreeing to the install. Make sure you get the MS updates needed too.

If after all this, you still don't know which updates or installs to agree to, there are help sites that provide assistance.

Check the products site first, they may have customer support or even a Forum.

Visit Spyware Warrior for a list of rogue/suspect Anti-Spyware products and web sites.

http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

Test your Firewall at Hacker Watch to make sure you're able to block attacks.

http://www.hackerwatch.org/probe/

If you're unsure of a process thats running, check it at UniBlues process library.

http://www.liutilities.com/products/wintaskspro/processlibrary/

These are just a few of the help sites out there, there are many excellent sites that can help you.

If after all the searching, you still need help, I recommend the Major Geeks Help Forum.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/

It will involve you registering and downloading the Hijack This program, running it and then uploading the log results to the Malware Forum there. They are good people there and will help you get your computer happy.

Think you've got it covered? Do the “How safe are you” quiz at Stay Safe Online.

http://staysafeonline.org/basics/quiz.html

Also a point to ponder. If you're giving instead of receiving, make sure what you give is safe and reliable.

Don't forget to create a restore point and maintain backups of important data is my last bit of advice.

So after the gift giving, after the clean up, after the nap on the couch, check your computer to insure your online safety.

Happy Holidays to you and yours.

About The Author
Doug Woodall writes to educate about computer security. He also hopes you visit his website at http://www.spywarebiz.com the next time you need a computer securty product.

Do you find yourself with a white tongue and suffer from a feminine itch? You may have a yeast infection and be calling it something else instead. Were you recently on an antibiotic for a respiratory infection or another health issue? Often people mistake a yeast infection for something else and do not properly diagnose their health.

Additionally if one uses steroids or certain birth control pills, a yeast infection may occur. Wearing damp clothing such as a bathing suit or workout clothing can help a yeast infection breed. Tight clothing or pants can also create problems as can wearing nylon pantyhose. It is best to wear cotton underwear and get out of swimsuits immediately into dry clothing. In hot weather, just change into a t-shirt and shorts with cotton underwear after swimming rather than remain in a wet bathing suit.

There are lots of remedies listed for yeast infections but some are not safe. It is important to use wisdom and common sense as you can hurt yourself using boric acid or anything acidic in the wrong concentration. Remember you are dealing with sensitive tissue when you have a yeast infection.

Jarvis and others speak of apple cider vinegar as a nice folk home remedy for yeast infections. The proportion of apple cider vinegar to water is important as it can burn your skin and hurt the tissue. Do not just use home remedies without research however organic they may sound. This is an issue with boric acid as well.

Have you seen that some of the home remedies for yeast infection mention the use of yogurt. This is because the yogurt products due to being probiotics can replace destroyed bacteria from antibiotics and other medications. Be sure there aren't additives in the yogurt however. If you are using yogurts that have sugar, you will be creating another breeding ground for bacteria.

We're a culture that likes the quick fix, but constant vigilance is necessary to prevent a yeast infection from taking over again. It needs to be a way of life and not just a temporary bandaid. Drinking buttermilk can be a tool to keep the body on the right track. Having a well thought out system and plan rather than haphazardly trying different supplements is the best way to both prevent and cure a yeast infection.

You can find liquid or pill supplements of acidopholous or bifidus in the local health food stores. These are often in the refrigerator department due to the bacteria needing this. This can be a regular supplement to keep the body maintenance. There are some probiotics that do not need to be refrigerated but on the whole , the ones with the highest count do and these are excellent to restore your body's ph and create the right internal environment.

Your body needs to have it's ph balanced properly and this will help keep things even for you. Keep a regular routine so that you don't get recurring yeast infections and remember that this takes discipline and a system. You will get new energy again and it is worth the small dietary sacrifices.

About the Author:
Don't live with an untreated candida albicans and compromise your health. Stop by Home Remedy for Yeast Infections to learn more about natural cures for yeast infection help at http://yeastinfections.nuggz.org

Only 5% of the world’s population is protected by national legislation on the prohibition of smoking. In four countries in ten, smoking is still even permitted in hospitals and schools! In a new report, the World Health Organisation (the WHO) has reviewed the current battle around the world to combat smoking. In total 179 countries have been put under the microscope.

By focusing on the prevalence of smoking, legislation, taxation and even the import and export of tobacco products, the WHO has produced a first, exhaustive analysis of the worldwide anti-smoking battle. It is a study that shows that almost all countries must do more about this issue.

Overall, tax revenue from tobacco is 500 times higher than the sums spent by public authorities to combat smoking. Which is why the WHO recommends that the countries concerned should substantially  increase tobacco taxation and, as a result, the selling price of the products in question, i.e. cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, hookahs, roll-ups, chewing tobacco, etc.

As the WHO sees it, this approach is by far the most effective. Not only in reducing consumption but also in making a long-term source of funding available to support anti-smoking strategies.

In particular, the strategy advocated by the WHO under the name MPOWER. This involves systems to monitor tobacco use and prevention policies, protect people from tobacco smoke, offer help to quit tobacco use, warn about the dangers of tobacco and enforce bans on tobacco advertising.

These measures provide a roadmap to help countries fulfill and build on their WHO Framework Convention of Tobacco Control obligations, the WHO points out. The Convention is the Organisation’s response to the global strategy of the tobacco industry, which targets young people and adults in the developing world. And young women in particular, which is one of the most worrying indicators of how this epidemic is developing.

Worldwide, the tobacco epidemic is killing 4.9 million people a year. By 2030 this figure is likely to reach as many as 8 million. Which is a 63% increase!

Every day new studies show the dangers of smoking. Today its role in the development of new cancers, the incidence of cardiovascular accidents and eye disease is widely known. But did you know, for example, that when parents smoke it can also make their baby snore?

According to a British study, 10% of children under the age of 4 snore every night. In fact only 40% of our children are unaffected. Apart from the hereditary aspect of snoring, the explanation for these high figures is passive smoking.

The study involved 7,000 English children. Where one of the parents is a smoker, the risk of their child snoring is close to 60%. And it doubles if both parents smoke. This is a serious matter because early snoring can lead to an increased risk of respiratory complications: chronic cough, wheezing, recurring ear, nose and throat infections, etc. Hence the need for parents to listen out carefully when their baby is sleeping.

Another new finding is that smokers appear to be lazier than non-smokers. Already accused of having a poor diet, it now seems that smokers are particularly reluctant to exercise. This is the conclusion of a very serious study conducted by a team of Japanese researchers.

For 4 years, researchers at the Nagoya University of Medical Sciences studied the smoking and exercise habits of 750 Japanese people in good health. Their conclusion is clear. Smokers take systematically less exercise than non-smokers.

After quitting smoking, former smokers increase their level of activity. But as soon as they start smoking again they also fall back into their other bad habits. It seems that smoking destroys the will to be active. Three to four years after returning to smoking, their exercise level is the same as that of a regular smoker who has never given up smoking.

This is particularly worrying as exercise helps to prevent us getting overweight and suffering from high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels. Which means that smokers are only increasing their risk factors even further…

In addition to the many other harmful effects that smoking has on our health, it also affects our sleep – in fact smokers quite simply sleep less and less well than non-smokers. The reason for this is the lack of nicotine that results from their night-time abstinence.

Trouble getting to sleep and achieving deep sleep are therefore 4 times more common among smokers. An American research team compared the sleep experience of 40 smokers and 40 non-smokers, all in good health and none of whom were taking sleeping tablets.

Until now, most of the studies carried out in this field relied on the gathering of subjective data, e.g. comments such as  “I slept well (or badly)…” This study, however, is based on the analysis of polysomnographic traces taken from patients. Their cardiac and respiratory rhythms were recorded continuously throughout the night in order to analyse the different phases of sleep.