Two bogolan artists and I just came back from a training in Segou, a town 159 kilometers north of Koutiala. As I reflect on the training one of the first activities I did with Koro and Awa comes to mind. The activity was the first time I introduced product development and as it turns out was a good introduction to the Segou training. In this introduction Koro, Awa and I went to the computer place, googled bogolan and looked at products made from bogolan clothe. The goal of the internet session was to look at what bogolan artist were exporting. You could call it “Product Development 101.” We saw greens, reds and yellows not used by Koutiala bogolan artists. We saw purses made of straw and leather with bogolan accents. We saw candle holders, photo books, wallets and much more with a dash of bogolan From that day on one of my goals for the bogolan artists here in Koutiala was to think outside the box and explore new ideas. How to accomplish this at the time seemed out of reach.
Early on I had a bag made by the leather guy at the market with a bogolan accent around the middle. When Koro saw it her only comment was “Oh that’s nice.” I carried the bag around town for a while but it didn’t seem to inspire the artists to try something new. As time went on the goals expanded to talking about quality control, sizing the scarves differently, thinking about new techniques, how to display the products and the list goes on and on.
The Segou training only cost $30 for materials and came out of a networking trip back in May when I went to every bogolan gallery in Segou and asked the people if they did trainings. At the Soroble Cener Mr. Coulibaly responded enthusiastically. Since May several volunteers told me that Mr. Coulibaly had talked to them and was willing to do the training for free and he wondered why no one had called him. Things have been so busy here calling him back took several months but I was glad when I did because this training was one of the most successful projects to date.
During the training the artisans learned to dye 10 colors, use different processes to make the dyes, they learned different techniques for applying the white and black, and Koro set up an agreement to buy scarf material from the
Many ideas and projects fell into place with this Segou training. The supply and equipment project funding came through just before we left. During the training the bogolan artists observed the equipment and supplies that were well maintained and some used in different ways than the Koutiala artisans use them.
Upon returning Koro and the man who weaves the fabric talked about how the scarf fabric could be made here in Koutiala. They measured the size of the scarf material and talked about getting better quality thread. We started right away at replacing some supplies and equipment that make good quality production possible.
The Koutiala Bogolan Association has come a long way to making new and better products from 
that first exploration on the internet. All of the trainings including the literacy training have made the bogolan artist better prepared and closer to their dream of exporting more products. I would like to thank the three people who donated to the Supplies and Materials project through he Peace Corps’ website and all of the people that support me back home, I could not do this work with out all of you.
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