The Kankelefo Women’s Cooperative

The Kankelefo women’s cooperative was founded more than 5 years ago in the village of Kangala, in western Burkina Faso, about 25 km from the Mali border. The inhabitants of this rural region are mostly "Senoufos", an ethnic group that is also found across the border in Mali and the Ivory Coast.

It is a rural area where most of the inhabitants are farmers devoted to cultivating cereals, fruit trees, and raising livestock.

The Kenedugu also houses a traditional brotherhood of Hunters called "Dozos": its members practice hunting, traditional medicine, they are also musicians (they play balafon and the "Dozo N Goni" kind of modified Kora) and it is they who master some traditional rituals concerning the Spirits of Nature and Ancestors. They are highly respected and feared by the people.

The Kankelefoare cooperative has more than 75 active members and carries several activities that are enormously benefiting the women and their community:

• Traditional production of shea butter
• Management of a multifunctional platform used for: cereal mill production, corn husking, shea butter machine, dynamo for loading mobile phones.
• Providing Micro - credits to the members of the cooperative which are in turn used by the women members to manufacture traditional soaps, the production of a traditional condiment made from seeds of Parkia biglobosa ("Nere") called "Soumbala, and peanut butter production.

Toogga’s collaboration with the Kankelefo women’s cooperative is another successful partnership that accomplishes the cooperative’s and Toogga’s goal of adopting a responsible ethical business model to insure the economic emancipation of the women in the area.