Methods were three used in this study. Personal talk interviews and personal participant observation all form part of the primary data. The questionnaires were used to interview the people in the three projects. Staffs at Mbegani FDC and Mafia Island Marine Park and women and some men involved/
participating in fisheries and fisheries related activities from fishing communities were interviewed.
At Mbegani Fishery Development Centre (MFDC), which here I have chosen to consider as a project, I interviewed 16 staffs, (men and women). I picked them randomly from their working section. From Bagamoyo project, which is close to MFDC, I interviewed 10 people. Unfortunately all of them were women. In Mlingotini project there were 16 people made up of men and women.
At Mafia Island Marine Park (MIMP) 12 staffs members were interviewed and in the fishing villages Jibondo 19 and Juani 15 people were interviewed. A total of 88 people were interviewed for the purpose of this study.
The secondary data of this study are from the projects annual reports, evaluation reports, white papers and official records from various ministries. In this way I hoped to find practical indicators of women’s participation in project activities within and outside the project area and whether they were involved directly within the project’s general plans. I also wanted to know the number of women in the planning committees, and decision- making for various fisheries activities.
Interview questionnaires
A semi-structured questionnaire was used to interview each respondent on an individual basis. The questionnaires were both in English and Kiswahili. The English phrased questionnaires were only used to interview project workers and people in the offices. Women and men in the fishing communities were interviewed using the translated, semi-structured interviews in Kiswahili. The interview questionnaires were of three types. There were those which were for men and women from the selected fishing villages Type I, for the Mbegani FDC, denoted by Type II, and Type III were for the MIMP programme projects (See appendix 2, 3, 4 ).
Participant observation
This part was a challenge for me. I therefore start by explaining my own role. I was able to reach the neighbouring fishing villages by the help of the fisheries officers’ colleagues. The selected and visited villages knew me from before as I was engaged in fisheries bureaucracy. I have a lot of implicit application of the gender issues theoretically but this time my role changed to a practical one. I was forced this time to be strong with courage in my new role of being a researcher on gender relations to the coastal fishing communities. I tried as much as possible to participate in their daily activities for the neighbouring communities in determining labour organisation and income generating and distribution in the family. In Bagamoyo and Mafia district I devoted 10 days for each district in the villages.
In Bagamoyo I went to homes and markets to observe women activities and fish trade. I experienced some negative impacts from men as some of them lost interest of concentrating in the conversation when they noticed that most of the
questions were directed to favouring women. Also some men asked to be present when I was talking to their wives just to be sure of and know what I was asking them. In some villages men refused to be interviewed, they said “these are women issues.’’ Both in Mbegani FDC and in the MIMP projects, male and female staff accepted me and the interview work was done smoothly. I guess the knowledge and the long time relationship as colleagues influenced my work and made it easy.
Sampling
During sampling the target group were women involved/ participating in fisheries and fisheries related activities from both fisheries project and fishing communities. Men and youth from these study areas were also interviewed besides the fact that few men showed up for interviews. I wanted to include women that were active in the different projects, women in the planning and decision –making in the fisheries project and regular men and women living in the fishery communities but not engaged in projects. The members of the village committees and the village chairman in the case of the neighbouring fishing villages were also interviewed. I did this in order to understand the conditions outside fisheries project, the impacts of the projects (positive and negative) to the neighbouring fishing communities. The intention with the interviews was to obtain more information on their daily work, income expenditure and other family related issues.
Data analysis
Data analysis was carried out based on various activities, roles played by both men and women in the fisheries projects and from the neighbouring fishing villages which in one way or another have interaction with the projects. Gender relations were analysed by studying the different roles of men and women during planning and decision making of various fisheries and other related activities performed in the studied areas. Computerised statistical techniques were used to analyse the results from the primary and secondary data. Statistical package of Ms-Excel programs was used to obtain percentile values of data.
Scope of the study and limitation
The study is not intended as a comprehensive one. Only random survey and interviews were conducted with female and male members in selected villages and male and female staffs at Mbegani and Mafia, a total of 40 questions were asked.
Even if the questions covered many fields they were far from sufficient to have a broad impression of all the aspects.
The truth of the background information of the respondents specifically in the fishing villages had effect on my study survey results. For, instance individually women were not willing to say and able to remember the profit they got from the group work activities after dividing among themselves. Thus, it was difficult for this study to asses directly the impact of their projects in improving their life and whether involvement in plans or not is a potential resource for changing the situation of women.