Kollossi Is Turning What Was Once a Survival Strategy into a Profitable Community Enterprise

In Guinea’s Fouta Djallon Mountains, social and economic hierarchy are closely tied to altitude and geography. In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, Foulah and Mandengka chieftaincies conquered the region’s Djallonke peoples and incorporated local groups as serfs under powerful lineages. Leading families built administrative centers in the highland towns of Labe, Timbi, Koyin and Fode Hajji and collected tribute in goods and labor service from serf villages, known as rundé. The rundé occupied lowland areas where cattle – the primary reserve of pre-colonial wealth - could not graze due to the threat of trypanosomiasis transmitted by tse-tse flies.

When France colonized Guinea, this stratified social order stayed in place. European officials gained influence by embracing the status quo and cultivating close ties with chiefs. While serfdom was technically outlawed, French officers relied on the pre-colonial political order to produce unpaid labor (corvée) for road construction and military recruitment for the First and Second World Wars.

With independence in 1958, Guinea’s new president, Sekou Touré, outlawed remaining justifications for serfdom in Fouta Djallon, but his efforts were focused on dismantling the power of chiefs relative to the central government and did little to counterbalance a century of social stigma. Many rundé villages have thus remained at the bottom rung of Guinean society.

Through a project focused on small- and micro-enterprise (SME) development in the village of Kollossi, however, ADF is helping one economically marginalized rundé community climb out of poverty. The village of Kollossi near the town of Mali was settled sometime in the late-18^th century. Whereas Mali – the site of an old Foulah chieftaincy - occupies a broad, beautiful vista overlooking a wide westward-looking valley, Kollossi lies at the bottom of a steep ridge. Until recently, it was accessible only by footpath.

Economic development in Kollossi has been hampered by many factors. Subsistence agriculture is nearly impossible after centuries of intensive cultivation. Boulders rise out of ground that has lost most of its topsoil, and the village occupies a remote corner of a region that is itself geographically removed from Guinea’s commercial centers.

But with ADF’s support, Kollossi is turning what was once a survival strategy into a thriving community-led enterprise that has expanded average incomes and allowed the village to build its own school, hire a teacher, a launch a local market center for nearby villages. Kollossi once paid tribute to Foulah chiefs by weaving cloth for leading families from cotton traded up the Senegal River valley. The work was slow and arduous, and it offered little reward beyond grain donations from local landowners.

In 1988, however, the weavers organized themselves into the Koumanci Weaving Group of Kollossi (GTKK) to pool their operations and resources. In 1999, GTKK asked ADF for help in expanding the volume and quality of Kollossi’s cloth production, and ADF provided funds to construct a cement-block workshop with lighting powered by solar cells.  The 170 square meter facility has two long work spaces that support the weaving of cloth bolts up to 30 meters in length.

ADF monies have also helped GTKK:

• purchase locally built looms and spinning machines and import carding combs that have reduced the production time per bolt of cloth from five to two hours while tripling total production and profits;
• obtain working capital for bulk purchases of thread and the development of new designs and color schemes; and
• acquire training in cooperative management, bookkeeping, financial management, marketing and the use of new equipment.

GTKK’s contributions of sand, gravel, stone blocks and labor reduced construction costs for its new facility to just 27,000,000 Guinea Francs (US $13,500).

The cooperative has since developed new uses for the facility that go beyond what the original grant envisioned. The solar-powered lighting system has helped the weavers expand cloth production with nighttime shifts while providing space for adult literacy classes financed by members’ fees. The new weaving facility also provides space for a weekly market day that has turned Kollossi into a commercial nexus for local villages. And the women of Kollossi have started making handcrafted pottery for local sale.

Kollossi has also invested in its children, hiring a local teacher to conduct daily classes in reading, math and French grammar in a one-room schoolhouse built from a lacework of tree saplings and pounded bark. While the structure itself is modest, its goals are not. Before the project, only eight Kollossi children were attending school, and they had to walk several kilometers to the neighboring village of Hollo. Today, 30 boys and 18 girls are learning skills that were once inaccessible to their parents.

Abdullah Camara, 9, who leads his fellow students in French drill lessons, says he wants to be a teacher when he grows up – a remarkable statement for a child raised in a community that has produced a dozen generations of home-based weavers.

The elders of Kollossi note that before the ADF project began, their children regularly left the village to migrate to Senegal. There were also no more than three solid-structure homes in the village. Now there are more than 50 homes with concrete foundations and mortared walls. Whereas women once spent hours pounding fonio and maize into meal, they now earn enough from weaving to purchase the food they need and devote more time to their craft. Kollossi also has a satellite dish to pick up TV from Conakry, and a fleet of seven motorcycles convey goods and people between the village and local market towns.

Village elder Bakar Kindikante, 73, sees changes he never imagined. “Because of wars, our people came here long ago as refugees with nothing. Now people from other villages are coming here. We are building concrete homes with solid metal roofs, and the young people are no longer leaving. Now they believe things can change.”