Projects
The Youssouph Kalagan Diatta Pre-School
With help from The Kora Trust, the school has built up from just a handful of children in 2010 to over 120 today. Resources are scarce and one of the ways in which guests of the Kora Workshop and supporters of the Trust have been able to support the school has been by donating simple appropriate equipment and learning resources.
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The community-run pre-school prepares children for entry into the local primary school. Most children only speak a local language at home and are taught first steps in French, personal hygiene and social skills. This enables them to focus their energies more effectively on learning when they enter primary school.
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The Trust supports the salaries of two teachers and helps build and maintain the facilities at the school, including help to build a new classroom as well as accommodation for the teachers.
Woodwork and shoemaking tools
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When Trust supporter and orthopaedic shoemaker Philip Taylor visited the Kora Workshop in February 2019, he saw how few tools some of the local tradesmen had at their disposal.
With the help of residents in his home village of Bamford in Derbyshire, Philip collected together around 25kg of woodwork and shoemaking tools which have now been distributed around Kafountine.
These tools are helping families to become more self sufficient and increase productivity and prosperity.
The Souda Coly Pottery
Founder Kath Pickering was introduced to Souada who needed to buy a number of local clay storage pots for her compound, She found that this once thriving pottery was in decline and times were hard for Souada, a skilled craftswoman and her family.
The Trust is helping to build a new kiln for Souda, and a simple undercover showroom where Souada could display her work and even run workshops.
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With the above improvements,Souada has been able to increase her output and regularly supply her functional earthenware pots to local markets, as well as create new work, which can sell to passing visitors. She was one of the last in a line of potters and her skills were in danger of being lost. Her daughters couldn’t see a future in the declining business but now with a revamped set up, two of her daughters have decided to learn the traditional skills that have sustained their family for many years.
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Our friend Trevor Pollard made this short video about her work (click on the link to the left)