Introducing a grant-funded year-long series on the pandemic’s impact on women in Africa's least developed nations, this ambitious multiformat project tells the uplifting story of the women fish processors of Bargny, Senegal, and their tale of survival amid the economic hardships imposed by the pandemic.
The package exemplified the very best in AP all-formats storytelling: stunning visual journalism complementing the reporting and driving readers and viewers deeper into the story of the women’s cooperative work to support a community through the toughest of times.
The Dakar-based West Africa team of photographer Leo Correa, correspondent Carley Petesch and senior producer Yesica Fisch initially spent weeks working tirelessly to make contacts and gain the trust of the women as they waited for the fishing season to finally begin. Their reporting let the women's voices tell their story — and the visuals put you on the beach as they work laying out the catch, smoking the fish under smoldering peanut shells.
Women carry buckets filled with processed fish on Bargny beach, Senegal, April 25, 2021.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
Fishing boats line the shore of Bargny beach, Senegal, April 22, 2021. In Bargny and other coastal villages of Senegal, traditional fishing and processing of the catch is a livelihood and a pride. Methods have been passed down through generations. Women work as processors — drying, smoking, salting and fermenting the catch brought home by men.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
Men wade through the water as they carry their catch to shore at Bargny beach, Senegal, April 22, 2021.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
Fatou Samba, right, president of the association of female fish processors, carries a basket on her head, filled with the remains of processed fish at Bargny beach, Senegal, April 25, 2021. Samba has testified about the challenges in artisanal fishing. She hopes to stop much of the expansion of big industry as fishmeal companies scoop up fish and send the product to Europe and Asia.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
Fish processors pose in a makeshift tent at the processing site in Bargny, Senegal, April 25, 2021. Top row, from left: Marieto Diop, Maimuna Faye, Safimata Cisse and Aissatou Diouf . Bottom row, from left: Rokhaya Samba, Amsatou Diouf, Siny Gueye and Fatou Samba, president of the association of female fish processors.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
Fishing boats line the shore of Bargny beach, Senegal, April 22, 2021.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
A woman covers fish with peanut shells to process the catch on Bargny beach, Senegal, April 21, 2021.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
Fish are covered with peanut shells during processing on Bargny beach, Senegal, April 21, 2021.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
A woman gestures as a man on a horse-drawn cart unloads the catch brought in by fishermen at Bargny beach, Senegal, April 22, 2021.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
Ndeye Yacine Dieng talks with her 3-year-old grandson Babacar as she arrives at her home in Bargny, Senegal, April 21, 2021. Since her birth on Senegal's coast, the ocean has always given her life. Her grandfather was a fisherman, and her grandmother and mother processed fish.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
A woman working on a fish processing site walks through the thick smoke coming from burning peanut shells used to cure fish on Bargny beach, Senegal, April 21, 2021. In Bargny and other coastal villages of Senegal, traditional fishing and processing of the catch is a livelihood and a pride. Methods have been passed down through generations.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
A man walks past pirogues used as fishing boats as the full moon rises over Bargny, Senegal, April 26, 2021. The first true fishing season since the pandemic devastated the industry kicked off, bringing renewed hope to the fish processors, their families and the village, even as the challenges of coronavirus, and more, remain.
AP Photos / Leo Correa
Deep storytelling like this also took a team of editors and producers to make the work sing. Digital storytelling producer Nat Castañeda, deputy news director/U.S. South Janelle Cogan, Beirut-based producer Hend Kortam and chief photographer/Africa Jerome Delay collaborated across continents and were essential to the success of the package, delivering video edits, photo galleries, digital production and text tailored to meet client needs.
Major European client France24's Journal d'Afrique editor wrote: “The visuals of the Senegal story are among the best I’ve seen in recent years from one of the main agencies.”