Women helping communities adapt to climate change: Anti Rohey Ceesay, The Gambia
In Gambia, climate change is causing more severe flooding. Fishers in the countryside sometimes lose their lives because they lack reliable forecasts and receive no alerts of when to avoid open water. Anti Rohey Ceesay, a forestry expert from the Central River Region, decided to take matters into her own hands a few years ago. After nine weather stations were built in her district with funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF), Ceesay was able to gather weather alerts and travel via motorbike from village to village sharing vital warnings.
In Ceesay’s culture, knowledge is often passed on through song and dance, so she organized ‘climate theatre’ performances in villages to educate her community about climate change and how to adapt. Since Ceesay began providing advanced warnings, the number of deaths from climate impacts has fallen in her community, Ceesay said.
