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Female independent candidate for Basse constituency speaks

Mar 21, 2017, 10:16 AM | Article By: Kaddijatou Jawo

Kaddijatou Jabbie, the independent candidate for Basse constituency, has said youths and women motivated her to run for office in the National Assembly, where the country’s laws are made.

The 28-year-old is a senior Community Development Assistant working for the department of Community Development, and a graduate of Management Development Institute with a Diploma in microfinance and a national certificate in integrated rural development.

Ms Jabbie said she is passionate about youth and women’s empowerment towards sustainable socio-economic development, which was why she is running for office in the National Assembly to fight for the rights of youths and women.

She has been representing poor rural youths and women at the grassroots level, through organising forums to discuss issues and chat on possible solutions.

 She has been representing the voiceless in national matters across the country, and sometime last year she travelled to Accra, Ghana, where she represented the youths.

Over the years, Jabbie have extensively promoted youth participation in politics, and equal opportunity in employment, among others.

She said as a youth activist, she would advocate for the advancement of women and youths of rural Gambia, because she is from the rural areas and has been living among them for the most part of her life.

She knows all the issues affecting the poor rural Gambians, as a Community Development Assistant, and has trained hundreds of women on skills acquisition like local soap and Omo making, tie and dye and batik.

They have helped women regain farmland and have ownership over land for farming, since women are not given rights over land in many parts of Africa, including in The Gambia, even though they are the majority of farmers.