The Alafia Mali (Peace in Mali) Quilts

The quilts shown on these pages were born out of the devastating war that swept the north of Mali in 2012. Tuareg rebels joined up with jihadist terrorists and seized the northern region, where they imposed a reign of terror on the inhabitants, especially women.

The rebellion was suppressed by a French armed intervention, but the region has remained unstable ever since. Hundreds of thousands of Malians fled from the north for the capital Bamako, or abroad. They included the artists who made the squares for these two spectacular quilts.

Over the next six months, 60 survivors received extensive training in embroidery, clothes-making and soap-making. The two trainers who taught embroidery took a very different approach. Oumou Toure, in Bamako, worked with bright cloth and urged the women to experiment. They produced exuberant patterns, but without a theme. Also, the quality was very uneven. In contrast, Mariam Sidda Maiga, in Bourem, (left) began with the basics of sewing learned from her own mother. Her pupils progressed more slowly but acquired deep skills, and it shows in the quality of their sewing.

By September, the trainers and their pupils in both centers were struggling to find a way to tell a story through embroidery. AP director Iain Guest visited in September for an evaluation and worked with Giorgia and the Sini Sanuman staff to come up with a solution. They visited the market and purchased new cloth and thread. Giorgia and Mariam Seck, a leading Sini Sanuman outreach worker then explained the DRC approach to embroidery to the women at the Bamako center. The next step was to hire two local artists to sit with the women and help them translate their ideas into pencil designs.

The survivors followed these designs as they embroidered their squares under the watchful eyes of their trainers. The Bamako women, who had fled in 2012, chose images that recalled the terror of the Tuareg attacks in 2012. The women in Bourem, who had not fled even though they are currently living much closer to the war, chose more gentle themes of village life.

The quilters took on the entire range of tasks – designing, sewing, learning, paying for fabric and batting, and publicity. They were also able to benefit from a generous donation of Malian cloth from Yara African Fabrics. They divided the quilts into images of violence and images of serenity (mainly scenes of village life). Many of the images from the war quilt are explicit and show women being flogged and attacked (photo). The second quilt, in contrast, carries gentle images of canoes, camels and village life. The quilters took turns working on the quilts and then convened at their regular meetings in Bethesda to review progress.