Marguerite Thiaw

Faced with the problem of child malnutrition, coupled with the sparse economic resources of the women in her community, Marguerite Thiaw has created a series of innovations based on the banana, the main crop of her native region of Tambacounda, in Eastern Senegal. Using everything from the fruit to the skin, and combining it with other ingredients, her continuous experimentation around this crop has allowed the women of her village to emerge as banana knowledge entrepreneurs with a new income stream and new nutritive baby food.

Marguerite has created a baby food to reduce child malnutrition and increase the income of women producers in Senegal. After noting that the banana was the most widely available produce in her village, Marguerite decided that it must be possible to use this fruit beyond merely selling and consuming it in its raw form. So when her youngest child was suffering from malnutrition and chronic diarrhoea she had the idea to create a banana-based food product with close to the same nutrient values as the baby foods sold at large supermarkets and which her meagre income prevented her from buying for her child.

Under strict hygienic conditions, Marguerite dried and peeled unripe bananas before grinding them into flour. She then put this flour to boil, and mixed it with milk and a small amount of sugar. Marguerite gave the resulting blend to her child, who day by day regained strength and returned to good health. The medical personnel under whose care he was also noticed the change and attributed it to this remedy.

Propelled by this success, Marguerite called together the members of the Association of Women Banana Producers (AFPROBAT), which she founded a few years earlier for the aim of increasing economic cooperation, as well as political, economic, and intellectual power among women banana producers. She shared her discovery and they all began using the remedy. Marguerite also shared with them other food products she had created from banana flour and banana skin, including a medicinal product for skin problems. Aware of the value of these new banana-based products, Marguerite and the members of her organization decided to take the product to commercialization by organizing at each stage of the value chain. The result has been the empowerment of women producers who now have a new source of revenue through their identity as banana knowledge entrepreneurs.

Like many parts of the country, child malnutrition plagues Marguerite’s native region of Tambacounda in Eastern Senegal. This is often combined with severe cases of diarrhoea. And while nutrient rich baby formula is available in supermarkets, they are often priced much higher than what many mothers can reasonably afford, thus rendering them useless in the fight against malnutrition.

Mothers already struggle for income due to the lack of economic opportunity afforded women in the region, who often find themselves battling gendered notions of their role and being excluded from positions of decision-making in the main industry that drives the local economy: Banana production. Women banana growers, for example, are obliged to combine work in the fields with their household chores, thereby reducing their productive capacity. Their natural biological functions (i.e. breastfeeding, pregnancy, and childbirth) are used as explanations for why they cannot take up leadership roles, or participate in decision-making within local collectives, federations, political parties, and other rural organizations. The result is that among the 4,198 banana producers in the region, only 22 percent are female, and women hold only 1,134 of the 115,375 hectares of banana cultivated in the valley. There are no female private developers at all, and they are generally only entitled to 1250m² of communal village fields. Women also find themselves suffering the most in times of catastrophes such as floods, and in years where there is banana overproduction.

Recognizing the marginalization of women in banana production, various government and international development agencies have tried to create initiatives to integrate women into various projects but have not been very successful. Many women say they do not believe that development projects can get them out of poverty, and in fact, they have no real idea of what is being offered to them. Marguerite believes this sentiment exists because of the manner in which these outside agencies approach the women. Without being from the area, and with no record of success to stand on, these agencies engender great skepticism. As a native of these villages, on the other hand, Marguerite found it much easier to get women involved in AFPROBAT. Even before creating the association, she had led other smaller innovations and associations; thus, her reputation for honesty and entrepreneurial spirit was well established.

Having noticed that in several other sectors, women had formed associations and thus acquired enough power and autonomy to enable them to progress within their respective industries, Marguerite sought advice about how to set up an association of women banana producers. After this consultation, she contacted her fellow women banana growers and convinced them of the need for this association. Together they formed AFPROBAT. The association’s objective is to successfully link the needs of women with their strategic interests. This involves first looking at the problems that the women are faced with in order to innovate and find simple solutions, easily accessible in their daily environment.

One of the first examples addressed the issue of the double burden of women to deal with house chores while trying to be productive in the banana fields. Using contributions from members, the association set up a village crèche where younger children are cared for by older children, who in return receive a symbolic sum as encouragement. The crèche is attended by over seventy children. Thus, relieved of the worry of arranging childcare, the women banana growers are now more free to tackle activities which generate income.

It is within this space for dialogue and cooperation that Marguerite went on to share her banana flour innovation, thus tackling another key and recurrent problem: Child malnutrition.

Marguerite and the women in her association, which has now expanded to fourteen villages and boasts over three hundred members, decided to begin commercialization of the multipurpose banana flour, which can also serve as a food staple, used to create couscous and beignets, as well as a soap and a highly effective pomade for skin problems. Given their weak buying power, the women decided to increase efficiency by cutting out all the middlemen in the process, from the harvesting of the fruit to the sale of the banana flour. They began purchasing their own produce and drying it while the banana was green and still hard, thus solving the problem of preserving the product. With the assistance of an international organization, ActionAid, they acquired a processing unit, which allowed for a quicker drying process and a better quality of product. With the support of regional authorities in Tambacounda, Marguerite secured a shop in the large market in Tambacounda to sell the products on a larger scale.

Marguerite is currently taking the necessary administrative steps to gain accreditation as a baby food product for her innovation and to establish it as a brand. She has already received approval in principle from the Technical Food Institute and is awaiting certification from the Promotion of Rural Micro Enterprises. Once Marguerite has acquired this documentation, she will be able to launch advertisements on community radio stations to increase publicity of the product. The next step for both Marguerite and her association will be to set up a large processing unit on the land that the women have acquired for this purpose. They have submitted requests for funding to several COs and government agencies and have also opened accounts in two microcredit banks, in which they deposit their membership contributions. In time, this will allow them to accrue an amount against which they will be able to borrow, and thus fund the unit themselves. This enterprise will recruit from the women in the surrounding area and the children of banana producers, in an effort to counter the rural exodus and the difficulty of integrating the youth into society once they have completed their studies.

At the same time, Marguerite participates in fairs across Senegal where she meets fellow participants, both national and international, who are interested in her product. She states that she is currently at the stage where she must go out and share her experiences with other banana producers in the region, and throughout the world; all the while acquiring new knowledge to pass on to the members of AFPROBAT.

Marguerite has always been a social entrepreneur. From childhood, her main concern was to create cooperative links and solidarity among girls and, later on, among women. At the age of 14, Marguerite began her first small-scale cooperative. She lived in a small village and proposed to her classmates that on non school days they go to the neighboring village and sell their services to help support the mothers with household expenses. Realizing that the income of each girl was different, Marguerite proposed setting up a small fund where the girls deposited the money they made, and at the end of the month (or whenever there were religious ceremonies) the income was shared equally between them, thus avoiding any disagreements.

When Marguerite got married, she managed to convince her husband to move to Tambacounda, some 400 km from his native village. In response to the droughts that ravaged the country in the 1970s, the Senegalese government initiated terres neuves (new land) programs, encouraging rural populations to move to locations such as the Gambia River Valley in Tambacounda. There, Marguerite met women of diverse ethnic origins. Given her nature, Marguerite began building contacts and decided to create small groups in which they shared housework, childcare and opened a Rotating Savings and Credit Association to save on expenses. Marguerite also introduced to the local Fulani women, the tomato, a fruit they were previously unaware of, and taught them how to grow it.

Having discovered several banana-based opportunities and sharing them with her community, Marguerite now feels ready to export her knowledge beyond her natural frontiers. She wants to be part of a larger network, integrating the rural women’s movements of her region to exchange best practices, and adopting new ideas to improve the quality of life of rural women. Marguerite is the treasurer of the Regional Collective of Banana Producers of Tambacounda (CORPROBAT) and has completed courses in fruit and vegetable processing, as well as microenterprise management and organizational dynamics.