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Womesa cleans up Au Cap beach |05 August 2019

Womesa cleans up Au Cap beach

The participants take a breather from their clean-up exercise to pose for the camera with Minister Cosgrow

Our oceans play a major role in our everyday life, but they are in grave danger. To protect the ocean, we must look to a crucial, largely overlooked component: gender.

On Saturday August 3, in celebration of the African Day of Seas and Oceans which was in July, the Association for women in the maritime sector in Eastern and Southern Africa (Womesa) Seychelles chapter organised a beach clean-up at Au Cap. The clean-up also served to highlight the important role of African women in marine conservation for sustainable livelihoods.

Womesa, whose mission is to advocate gender equity in the marine tine sector, is made up of 50 members, drawn from countries within East and Southern African. It was launched by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) in December 2007, in Mombasa, Kenya.

“The role of the association is to advocate for women in marine tine as it is a very male dominated industry,” said Womesa Seychelles chairperson Veronica Bristol.

Mrs Bristol added that beach clean-up is the first activity that Womesa Seychelles has done this year and also serves as a promotional tool to raise awareness of the association and recruit new members.

“We would like to see more people participate in beach clean-ups as our beaches are the highlight of our tourism industry. The little plastic wrappers and take-away boxes all wash up on our shores or in our ocean so we urge the public to do what they can to help minimise the damage,” said Mrs Bristol.

The Womesa Seychelles team was also joined by the Minister of Environment, Energy and Climate Change Wallace Cosgrow who gave some encouraging words to the team.

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