KAFOUMBA, THE TRENDY TAILOR OF BOOLA, GUINEA
— Reintegration
Boola, Guinea – It is a small town of 22,000 inhabitants located 80km from N’Zérékoré in the south-east of Guinea and about 100km from Côte d’Ivoire. A town of passage, Boola is a trading city, known for its weekly market, the banana trade, and its cattle market.
Boola is also where Kafoumba Keita, the youngest of four children, was born, before the family moved to N’Zérékoré. He was four years old. His family then relocated to Côte d’Ivoire where they stayed until the political crisis that hit the country between 2010 and 2011 prompted his father to bring the family back to Guinea. Kafoumba is then a teenager, he will learn sewing in N’Zérékoré and in Boola where his grandmother lives.
“I then went back to Côte d’Ivoire to look for a job in Abidjan, I wanted to travel and see the world. In Côte d’Ivoire, I was working for a boss, but I was doing well.”
Kafoumba learns from master tailors and perfects his style, business is good, he owns three sewing machines. In 2016, by mimicry, to do like his friends, some of whom had already arrived in Spain and Italy, Kafoumba sold his machines and decided to leave for Europe.
“I wanted to see Europe too.” His journey began in Burkina Faso, Mali and then Algeria, where he spent over a year.
“In Algeria, traditional sewing doesn’t work, so I had to find something else, so I worked as a bricklayer there, for about a year, before continuing on to Libya.”
When he arrived in Libya, the journey became more complicated, he found himself locked up in Sabratha and spent a month there before being taken to Zouara, then Gharyan and finally Tripoli, where he was identified by the IOM teams. After the disappointment of not being able to continue his journey, Kafoumba was finally relieved to be able to return home to Guinea. Even today, he recalls with bitterness the abuse and ill-treatment he suffered during his stay, the hunger, the despair, … but above all the hunger, and the state of extreme emaciation in which he was when he finally returned to his native region in Guinea.
On his return, he was first associated with other migrants, about fifteen beneficiaries with whom they had to start a collective project for the marketing of palm oil. Kafoumba then put forward his skills as a tailor and expressed the wish to be reintegrated through an individual project.
He chooses to return to his hometown where his grandmother still lives and where he learned to sew from his old master, Louseny Sangaré. He returned to work with him while waiting for the financing of his reintegration project. He also benefits from his advice and encouragement, a precious help that will contribute to his development.
“When I was in Maghreb, I did not work for more than three years. So, when I came back, my master bought me two loincloths and asked me to sew them to test myself. In the meantime, I had perfected my skills in Abidjan, so when I finished sewing, he was very impressed. And I hadn’t really lost my touch.”
His master shows the result to the other apprentices: “Look what Kafoumba has just sewn, even though he has spent more than three years without seeing a machine!”
In parallel to his job with his former master, Kafoumba discusses his reintegration project with his IOM adviser, lists his needs and finds himself the location of his future workshop, which is situated not far from the main street of Boola, close to the market. The budget allocated to his reintegration allows him to rent the place for a year, to buy two sewing machines and various materials.
“My speciality? It’s men’s and women’s sewing, I do both and it works very well. Especially with the young people here in Boola. They like the way I sew.”
Kafoumba has brought a very urban and modern style that appeals to the young people of Boola when local tailors offer more traditional designs. His originality and know-how come from his time in Côte d’Ivoire, a country renowned in West Africa for high fashion. Today he continues to offer models that are always at the cutting edge of fashion. His tailor friends in Abidjan share with him the latest trends from the Ivorian capital through social networks.
When asked about his clientele, Kafoumba’s face lights up.
“They are young people, young girls, and reputable ladies! They like my way of working. And besides, I prefer to sew for women. When a man orders an outfit, you might not see it again for a year, whereas with women it’s very regular. They come to sew clothes for ceremonies, weddings, baptisms, religious celebrations, there’s always an occasion to look good!”
In his quest to expand, Kafoumba recently decided to relocate his workshop to N’Zérékoré near the Great Mosque. The small town of Boola had become too small for his dreams of grandeur. The trendy tailor of Boola is now a renowned master and parents regularly come to entrust their children to him as apprentices. He currently has thirteen apprentices and two employees. People know his story, that of a young tailor who passed through Abidjan and experienced irregular migration and prison in Libya and who today brings a bit of Abidjan fashion to the elegant youth of Guinea.
Kafoumba is one of the 18,244 Guinean returnees who, since April 2017, have received reintegration assistance under the EU-IOM Joint Initiative.
