The women of Kansongho, like many Dogon women, buy raw cotton grown in other parts of Mali and transform it to earn income.  They pick out the seeds, card, and spin it, then hire men to weave it into strips of cloth.  Then, they sew the strips together into wider cloths and sell it to a neighboring village for indigo dying. Tired of sporadic availability in the nearby market, exorbitant prices and credit policies, and vagaries in quality, the women of Kansongho decided to create their own cotton bank in their village.  With the help of The Tandana Foundation, they purchased a large stock of cotton in 2010 and created a committee to manage it.  After receiving training in how to manage the stock and keep records, the committee divided the stock among all the women who wanted to work with cotton, noting how much each woman would owe for the cotton once she had sold the cloth made from it.  With help from the village men and our 2011 Mali Volunteer Vacation volunteers, they also built a storehouse to keep the cotton safe.  Each year, they will use proceeds from the previous year's sales to restock the cotton bank.

The cotton bank committee is all women, except for one member, whose task is to explain the cotton committee's needs to the men of the village.  The women are excited to have control over this project and over a resource that is so important to them for earning income.  They are also proud to have official ownership of the cotton storehouse, as owning property is very rare for women of the area.  With its shade hangar, the cotton bank serves as a gathering place for women to meet and work together.