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GA06005
GA tote bags feature traditional art from the Congo by Robin C. Oliver
Louise Johnson, an observer from Princeton, N.J., sports the official General Assembly tote bag, made in the Congo from traditional Kasai Kuba cloth. Women in Kinshasa created more than 3,000 bags for Assembly participants. Photo by Joseph Williams. BIRMINGHAM, June 15 * Months before most Presbyterians began to take notice of the 217th General Assembly, a handful of young women in the Province of Kasai, Congo, were praying daily for this year’s meeting.
Their prayers were not the same prayers of hope and concern that some American leaders had on their hearts, but rather prayers of thanksgiving. The small income that helped carry them through each day was coming from their work of making traditional Kasai Kuba cloth for the General Assembly tote bags.
Recently, Doug Welch, PC(USA)’s area coordinator for Africa, received a letter of thanks from Monique Misenga, director of the department of women and families of the Presbyterian community of Kinshasa. "She said this project is making the women of the Congo known outside of the Congo," Welch said. "And she talked about how this has provided an income for the young women who have been working on these bags for the last several months."
Misenga said many of the women helping with the project would otherwise be at risk of prostituting themselves for the income they need to survive, a particularly destructive possibility in a region where HIV rates are soaring. Instead, the women working on the tote-bag project met daily at the Women’s Center Matete (Kinshasa). They gathered palm leaves from the raffia palm and extracted the fiber. On handcrafted looms, the women spun the fibers to make a thread. The team dyed the fibers with natural dyes and wove the finished thread into a cloth known as Kuba cloth. This part of the process was traditionally done by men, but it is only the beginning of the labor.
The African Conservancy, a non-profit group with the mission of protecting the habitat and cultural traditions of the African continent, describes Kuba cloth artwork on its website.
Although men sometimes decorate the cloth they weave, only women produce the most laborious and prestigious type of cloth decoration, cut-pile embroidery. It takes about a month of regular work for a woman to complete a small square of Kuba embroidery using a laborious technique that includes dying, detailed needlework and clipping individual tufts. Except for novices, designs are created as the crafter proceeds, usually elaborating a new combination from the more than 200 familiar patterns and known designs, most which are identified by name.
Kuba cloth, with its abstract geometric patterning, served as inspiration to such well-known European artists as Picasso and Braque. Matisse was such a fan that he displayed his collection of Kuba cloth on his studio walls. Welch said his office developed a 3-minute video about the process of making Kuba cloth, which will be shown during General Assembly.
More than 3,000 bags have been made by the Women’s Center Matete to be given to each of the delegates who register for the General Assembly. If any bags remain, they will be made available for sale at the Assembly gift shop.
To contribute to the work of the department of women and families of the Presbyterian community of Kinshasa, contact Doug Welch at (888) 728-7228, ext. 5353. The organization provides a place for biblical study for the women of Kinshasa and supports projects to help women become financially independent.
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