The pandemic seriously disrupted fish production and supply chains. Female fish traders faced a particularly high burden, with changes in trade and care, yet their voices were often overlooked in media coverage.

We partnered with WorldFish and AWFISHNET to train and develop a community reporter network of female fish traders to understand the impact of the virus on their lives and create solutions led by them.

Across 7 African countries, 14 women came together through their phones to hold their own investigation into the impact of Coivd19. From the start of the project, the network was added to a WhatsApp group, where they could share stories, support each other and seek advice. 

The group of women participated in a one-week remote training course (via Learn.ink) and completed additional tasks to put their learning into practice. Once the 6-week reporting sprint kicked off, they used the group chat to send in their weekly assignments, covering topics of distribution challenges and market access, the increased work/care burden, and others.

Despite the different locations, the digital group chat had a real sense of togetherness where community reporters could interact with each other to show interest and support for the stories being shared. 

They sent in 59 mobile reports to this community group chat and, from this, co-produced an advocacy film and fed into the ‘COVID-19 impacts on women fish processors and traders in sub-Saharan Africa‘ report.