Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2015-12-01, 11:33:23 | version 1.43.00
41akzente 3/15 COMMITMENT her mother would spin into fine thread. Even today, Traoré cannot write. ‘I had to learn a skill of some sort in order to survive,’ she ex- plains. At 17 she applied to a textile factory to train as a weaver. The trainer rejected her: ‘You’ll never do it. You’re a woman.’ The other apprentices in her group gave up Traoré eventually found a mentor to sup- port her application, a village elder whom the trainer respected. And so she took up her apprenticeship, surrounded by men who kept telling her she was not suited to the job. When the six months were up, she was the only one out of the group of apprentices who had not dropped out. Despite the pain in her arms and shoulders. ‘Today my fore- man says I was his best pupil,’ says Traoré, laughing and clapping. There is a hint of sat- isfaction at her male colleagues’ expense. On completing her training, Traoré rented a loom and sold her textile products at the market. In 2004 she joined forces with other female artisans to form the co- operative Affat. Together they bought their first loom. They used this to make fabrics which local sewing shops would turn into clothes and bed linen. Business was good. Affat was the place to go if you needed a wedding dowry. And it was popular among tourists too. Then, suddenly, in 2012 war broke out in Mali. It was a major setback for the country’s economic development. Affat sur- vived, although the tourists stayed away. To- day Traoré even sells her fabrics to buyers outside Mali, in Sierra Leone for example. She has received support from GIZ on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development and the European Union. Its activities seek to stimulate business at the local level, with a key focus on strengthening the efforts and creativity of women in particular. Funding is therefore provided to small and medium- sized enterprises run by women – including Colette Traoré’s weaving business. Special courses are organised to teach participants how to register a business, do the bookkeep ing or apply for a micro loan. Marketing is also an important element of the course, since it helps the women to widen their cus- tomer base in the long term. As a result of these measures, Traoré has had the opportunity to take part in trade fairs in Bamako and neighbouring Senegal. Furthermore, her weaving business has re- ceived financial support. This means she has also been able to buy a new handloom to process a greater volume of textiles. Thanks to this support, her weaving business has doubled annual profits from around EUR 1,500 to EUR 3,000. Traoré now takes home up to EUR 75 per month. That is well above the country’s legal mini- mum wage of EUR 61 per month. There have been times when she has earned more than her husband, a teacher. ‘He is now the school principal and we earn around the same,’ she says. The couple’s two daughters never have to help out in the weaving shop. The older girl attends the grammar school and has hopes of becoming a lawyer. Her younger sister wants to work in health care. ‘Our family is saved,’ says the entrepreneur The circumstances of women receiving sup- port in Mali are varied. On the one hand, there are women like Colette Traoré, who have already built a successful business and want to take it a stage further. And on the other, there are women who need initial sup- port with finding and developing their po- tential. Women like Néné Bakadji, who was so poor that her eldest son had to leave school in order to support his mother. At around the same time, her husband turned his back on her and left. The 45-year-old sits in the yard of her house, dips a square of white cotton into a tub and pulls out a dripping black mass. She wrings it and wrings it until the cloth gives up no more black water. One of the three employees watches closely. Bakadji has been dying cotton and print- ing it with traditional patterns since her ado- lescence. In the past, she used to sell perhaps six of her fabrics on market day. Today it is not unusual for her to receive a bulk order for 40 of them. For having taken part in a train- ing course organised by GIZ, the entrepre- neur now distributes business cards and advertises on local radio stations. She also travels to trade fairs to get her products more widely known. She has her own shop in Mopti and even ships her products to Burkina Faso. For Néné Bakadji, life is good. Her dye business brings in enough income to support the whole family. That has grown in the meantime to four children and two grand- children – and her unemployed husband, who came back to her. ‘Our family is saved,’ she says. But unlike Colette Traoré and other women, she does not see herself as a boss. ‘That’s still a role for the man.’ > Contact GIZ Mali > giz-mali@giz.de Empowering women Since 2002, GIZ has been supporting regional economic development in Mali in the regions of Ségou, Mopti and Kayes. Part of this work involves promot- ing women as entrepreneurs. 200 women from the textiles, dairy and fisheries industries have so far received advanced training. Partners include the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Decen- tralisation and a network that supports businesswomen in Mali. www.pact-mali.org