Access to sustainable energy empowers Senegalese women

24/06/2020 1 Comment read Environment & Development

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 23.06.2020 (IPS): Aïssata Ba, 45-year-old widow and mother of seven children, has been practising market gardening for the past 30 years in Lompoul Sur Mer village in the Niayes area of north-west Senegal. For many women in the village, endowed with fertile soil and favourable climate, it is the primary source of income throughout the year.

But lack of infrastructure, access to sustainable energy, financial support, equipment and knowledge of modern practices makes it a hard toil for these women engaged in market gardening, which is small-scale production of fruits, vegetables, flowers and cash crops during the local growing season and sold directly to consumers.

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Modern Slavery in Asia Pacific fuelled by poverty, migration & weak governance

15/05/2020 0 Comments read Environment & Development, Features, Migration

The writer won the 2020 NSW Premier’s Multicultural Communications Best Print Report Award for this story

The writer’s interview on SBS Radio Hindi Service

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 15.05.2020 (IPS): Aged 17, Moe Turaga was saddled with the responsibility of providing for his mother and young siblings when a family member approached him with the promise of a job and education in Australia. Dreaming of a bright future for himself and his family, he seized the opportunity and left the protective confines of his home in Fiji, only to find himself trapped in modern slavery on a remote agriculture farm in the state of Victoria.

Turaga was one of 12 cousins, forced to work long hours in abysmal conditions. He told IPS, “We had implicit faith in this man as he was family and a church minister. We kept loyal for years because we were told that our wages were being used to feed our family and send our siblings to school. It was 1988, we didn’t have mobiles or access to social media. All our identity documents had been confiscated by this man so we were completely isolated.”

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Indonesia faces new tsunami risks

29/04/2020 0 Comments read Environment & Development

By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 29.04.2020 (SciDev.Net): Many coastal communities in the Indonesian archipelago, including the proposed site of the new capital on the island of Borneo, could be at potential tsunami risk from submarine landslides, according to a study published by the Geological Society of London.

Tsunamis, whether caused by earthquakes, volcanoes or submarine landslides, pose a specific risk to the sustainability and resilience of coastal communities. They claim thousands of lives, damage to property and cause widespread destruction to infrastructure. South-East Asia is particularly prone to tsunamis due to its seismically active geology.

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