By Yero S. Bah
Taiba Tailoring is operated by Mr. Ebrima Sanyang of Farafenni Town in the North Bank Region (NBR) of The Gambia. Also known as Taiba Sanyang, the young Gambian tailor told Mansa Banko Online during a recent telephone interview that the services he offers are suited for all categories of people: men, women, young and old, but noted his clients are mostly women. “I am a tailor who sews all styles for all types of the people,” he intimated.
Sanyang explained he learnt tailoring in Farafenni and graduated in May 2014; then he later moved to Serekunda to find work, adding that he had been a freelance tailor for sometime. As recounted by Taiba, he went to Dakar in Senegal for further tailoring skills and it was through that he was able to save some funds, while in Dakar, which he later used to build his own tailoring shop in his native town of Farafenni.
“The most disheartening thing about tailoring in the Gambia [is that] people think one must learn tailoring in Senegal; this hurts me a lot,” according to him. Sanyang extolled the providers of Tekki Fii grant, saying he started the tailoring business just a month before tobaski in 2018, and was able to buy a simple sewing machine. He also benefited from the Tekki Fii grant through the Youth Empowerment Project (YEP) which has catapulted him to a higher and better level in terms of access to funds and upgrading his tailoring business in Farafenni, he pointed out.
“When I got the grant, I setup my business correctly and we have been able to improve our business as we create beautiful styles,” Sanyang remarked of the grant. He averred that Gambian youth should stay in country to work, and that most Gambians in the sub-region are doing great but their conditions outside are terrible. In his opinion, staying in the Gambia is the best thing to do.
Sanyang also apprised the public, through this medium, about the food bag he created that could keep food “hot for eight hours”; and he said it could help women whenever they cook food.
The tailor in the NBR business town of Farafenni further said people who cook their food in the morning could easily use this bag and there would be no need to reheat their food after staying eight hours at workplace.
Sanyang’s exposition: “You just remove the food from the bag and eat. The practical aspect of the bag is already in place, and my targets are girls who would be working on that bag.”
Meanwhile, he used the interview to urge YEP officials to go and see the technology employed in the creation of his bag, maintaining something meaningful could be done about the bag by the donors, in order to develop it into something great for the people of this co
