Tag: Guinea

We are at the tomb of Fono Oussou Camara, the ancestor of the chiefs and ancestors of Damaro, father of Diaraken and Fakassia, Bossoboy and many others. We are at the tomb of the ancestor of all the Damaro people. This is our history. Everyone must know his history. We are at the tomb of Diarakendou. Thank God, this is

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Lansiné Camara, a healer in Damaro, invented an alphabet for himself to write Malinké: his writing is called nkan (it is neither the Latin nor the Arabic alphabet, nor nko), and he names the letters one by one in his notebook. The alphabet has 28 letters. He transcribes all the sounds in Maninka.   He writes for example “I am going

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El Hadj Fantamady Damaro Camara, president of Damaro’s Fakassia union.     “It is the association of the children of Damaro, of all the nationals, friends and allies, those from outside and inside. Within the association, every year, all the sons of Damaro meet in a general assembly to present projects and programmes for the development of Damaro.     The union

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The third workshop of the Watigueleya Kélê project took place in Damaro, Guinea, from Monday 28 February to Thursday 3 March 2022. The workshop focused on theatre as a means of raising awareness about the effects of climate change. The objective was to train village communication relays to develop and perform skits on the theme of climate resilience, so that

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This spring newsletter is largely dominated by the activities of the last workshop that took place in Damaro (Guinea), from 28 February to 3 March 2022. All the village communication relays were able to gather again, discuss their latest reports and above all take part in a theatre workshop led by the Malian theatre specialist Aboubacar Diarra. Statistical reports of

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In March 2022, Marie Rodet and Elara Bertho presented the book Djiguiba Camara, Essai d’histoire locale (available in free access here) to the descendants of the Camara family in the village of Damaro, a partner of the Watigueleya Kèlê project. The book traces the long history of the Camara migrations, accounts of the founding of the village, resistance to French

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Ansoumane Camara in the Nakotou forest, one and a half kilometres from Damaro centre. From now on, when a tree is cut down (for a funeral or other reason), the community obliges to reforest in the forest, in return. This forest has always existed and the climate is very mild. The aim is to reforest the whole of Damaro.  

The mutual aid group in the field of an inhabitant of Mandou during the rice harvest in the presence of the village delegate of Mandou, Moussa Camara. It is October and there has been no rain for a fortnight already. The youth are getting organised to help the owner of the field to face the challenges of climate change.   

I am talking about agriculture: the cultivation of okra. Before, we used to grow long-lasting crops. For reasons of climate change and lack of water, I turned to okra, which lasts only two months and two weeks. Okra is useful in the sense that we eat it fresh, dry, with rice, fonio, to (food made from cassava). Once ground, we

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By Elara Bertho (LAM, Sciences Po Bordeaux), Co-investigator in SOAS research project: Watigueleya Kèlê, Equitable Climate Resilience in West Africa: A Comparative Research Action Programme (Mali, Guinea and Senegal) In a reflection on the notion of a collective village repertoire and its digitisation, I return to the research-action programme carried out with the Malian association Donkosira, which since 2017 has

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