We could not reach her on the phone, so we went to her office to learn, that she was at their branch in Ouidah, a few kilometres out of Cotonou. We got her cell phone number and gave her a call: we would like to interview her, but we also needed Celestine, the woman we filmed last time on her tour to buy empty bottles, cans and paper from the households. We covered the collecting part, but not her walking 3 km to the market and selling the bottles. We did not interview her so far. Jaqueline promised to find out her cell phone number and call us back.
We were about to leave the office, as Jaqueline´s boss came and asked if he could help. As Jaqueline was out of reach, I asked him for an interview, but he immediately phoned Jaqueline and told her to come to the office, which would take her about 2 hours time.
In the meantime we decided to go to the place were the women of this quarter have their bottle storage, it was quite close to the Oxfam office. We hoped to get hold of Celestine. At the storage there was the usual crowd of women washing bottles, eating, chatting. They recognized us and went away to bring Celestine, who was not happy about our request: her next tour to the market was on Monday (we would be in Lagos then), now it was Friday and she wanted to enjoy the weekend with her family. She also claimed, that she did not have enough bottles to sell. Hm, how about a small fake? We would buy the bottles from a colleague, and she could sell them and get all the money without having to collect them all day. We also would pay for her taxi to the market, so it would safe her lots of work and 3 km of walking. Finally she agreed, and we made an appointment for 9 a.m. the next day.
Jaqueline came and gave us a comprehensive interview about Oxfam Quebec – their history, structure and fields of waste management.
Basically, they take care of all solid waste in Cotonou and Ouidah: they have this plastic recycling program, a compost production from organic waste, a huge landfill site, as well as educational programs, where people learn how to avoid waste. Oxfam offers “abonnements” to all households: for a very small amount of money they get a dustbin, and Oxfam would come every week to get the waste. To promote this, they have groups of “animateurs” on the streets, in schools or walking from door to door to demonstrate the advantages of professional waste disposal. Additionally, they produce TV-spots, Jaqueline was playing in some of them.
Oxfam Quebec is a Canadian organization founded in 1942 to fight hunger and poverty. In 1996, a regional office for West Africa was established in Cotonou, Benin to supervise activities in Benin, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Waste, which was a big problem, turned out to be a chance to provide jobs for many people, and it was a success story. Cotonou became much cleaner, and many other communes now ask for a branch in their cities. They soon will expand to Porto Novo, and probably further all over the country. http://oxfam.qc.ca/
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