In Côte d’Ivoire, one household staple permeates daily life throughout the West African country. In bowls on every kitchen counter, bins outside of every doorstep, and buckets in the local market, you’ll find elongated, hand-tied plastic bags packed densely with tiny, off-white granules of ground cassava.
It’s called attiéké — the country’s national dish, and it’s woven into daily life, cultural customs and celebrations, and national identity itself.
And, like so many of life’s most cherished cultural traditions, it is made possible almost entirely by women.
Attiéké As A Path to Financial Independence for Women
Throughout the country, women manage the majority of cassava production and small-scale farming plots, as well as the labor-intensive process of transforming cassava into attiéké and bringing it to market.
The complex, multi-day process has been passed down through generations of women, and has become a key pathway to economic independence. Many women join together to form cooperatives and produce attiéké at scale for wholesale markets — providing an important source of income that helps support their families and send their children to school.
“You can’t be in Côte d’Ivoire without touching attiéké. It’s what we do to live, and it’s how single mothers take care of their children.”
“You can’t be in Côte d’Ivoire without touching attiéké. It’s everywhere. It’s our main food,” one Ivoirian resident told us. “It’s also the main economic activity for women. It’s what we do to live, and it’s how single mothers take care of their children. The little profit we gain, we use to solve many problems and fill many needs.”
Despite women being the primary drivers of the attiéké production process, some steps are not owned by them — literally. After the cassava roots are peeled, they must be fed into an industrial machine that shreds them into a fine, pulpy mash. For this, many women and women’s cooperatives must pay a fee to rent the required machine.
“Attiéké is the business of women,” one woman told us. “But all of the machines here are owned by men.”
That disconnect is exactly where one GLOW Club member stepped in to make a difference.
Taking Action to Help Fill A Need
Growing up as one of seven children supported by a widowed mother, GLOW Club member Mariam knew intimately what it meant to stretch a household income to make ends meet. All around her, she saw countless other women in her community doing the same — many of them cultivating, processing, and selling attiéké to help keep their families afloat.
It was these women she thought of when she had the opportunity to develop her own community impact project.
Through the Global Catalyst Girl Advocacy Committee, Mariam had the opportunity to grow her advocacy skills with girls from around the world through a 9-month virtual training program. She was also provided with support and funding to launch a project that could positively benefit her community.
“I learned that advocacy means to take action to help fill a need,” Mariam shared. “To help people with their challenges and problems, and share something good with others.”
She thought of the women she passed every day on her way to school, walking to their women’s cooperative to spend the day processing cassava, using a rented machine that cost them approximately $2 each use.
She realized that this was the gap she could help fill.
“To rent the machines, these women pay an expensive fee,” Mariam shared. “I decided to support them — because supporting them means supporting the country. These are the mothers of our families, using their income to provide for their children.”
Bringing the Voice of the Kid to the Community
Mariam didn’t always believe that she could make a difference. Growing up, she often let others’ limiting views of what girls could accomplish narrow her expectations for herself. She recalls an incident in her Physical Education class when the teacher commented that girls, specifically, could not do a certain activity.
“Most people think that girls are weak,” Mariam shared. “So I told myself that what the teacher was saying was true. I believed that he was right.”
When she joined GLOW Club, she learned that girls could be leaders, advocates, and changemakers.
“I learned not to listen to the stereotype that the only place for girls is in the kitchen,” she shared.
“Supporting [women] means supporting the country.”
As she continued to develop her confidence and belief in her own capabilities through her role in the Girl Advocacy Committee, she became determined to support women in her community while challenging others’ expectations of what girls could accomplish.
For her community impact project, she held focus groups with local women to determine their greatest need, and began mobilizing her peers to conduct stakeholder outreach and raise funds for an attiéké machine to provide to a local women’s cooperative.
In doing so, she brought multiple stakeholders together — students, parents, community leaders, and local no-governmental organizations — in support of an initiative that would benefit not just the women it touched, but the entire community.
Mariam’s project resulted in $163 dollars raised: Enough to purchase a machine and a large basin (for holding and transporting processed attiéké) to support a group of 25 – 30 women.
Even more significantly, it showed the community that girls are capable of leading great change.
“Even a small girl can have big ambitions.”
“Through this project, I was able to bring the voice of the kid to my community,” Mariam reflected. “During the ceremony of donations, everyone gathered together in one place, and I gave a speech. It was exciting, and important, for everyone to see a young girl lead a project.”
The materials Mariam donated are currently being used, free of charge, by local women.
“We use the saved money for school fees, transportation, and to feed our families,” one beneficiary shared. “We never expected this, and we are so happy. To see a young person like Mariam do this — It’s amazing.”
Mariam’s journey reflects the guiding beliefs behind our work at Global Catalyst: When girls build their social and emotional skills, they develop agency, grow to exercise their voice with confidence, and ultimately build the power to advocate for themselves and their communities.
For Mariam, this process led to a powerful realization that has transformed the way she views herself and her role in her community’s development.
“This project taught me that you need to be older to make a change, and that even a small girl can have big ambitions,” Mariam shared. “Our community must know the importance of valuing girls and letting us express ourselves.”
Ready to meet more girls leading change? Check out, 8 Girls From 8 Different Countries Working Together to Ignite Global Change.
Global Catalyst mentors girls around the world to become powerful advocates and confident leaders. Our signature program, GLOW Club, connects girls in some of the world’s most underserved areas with trusted local mentors and a safe space to express themselves as they develop their agency, find their voice, and build their power. Since our founding, we’ve ignited the power of more than 100,000 girls, sparking a growing movement of youth-led change that is transforming communities — and the world — for the better.
