“Mulheres do Vale” (Women of the Valley) was an agroecology training project that consolidated the partnership between the Associação Agropecuária do Calhau e Madeiral and the independent collective Neve Insular. The action aimed to train women living in the Ribeira de Calhau and Madeiral valley to develop craft skills and techniques associated with growing cotton as a textile fibre, with a view to creating design and art pieces. The training and the public sessions reinforced the importance of promoting activities that encourage sustainable practices, with culture as one of the central elements of education.
Training women farmers in the Calhau and Madeiral Valley helped foster a local circular economy and secure suitable raw material for developing authorial design products committed to the community. The action was grounded in passing on indigenous agricultural knowledge, combining it with current agroecological practices and technologies without the use of chemicals. In an experimental field we turned to ceramics to produce “Ollas”, micro-irrigation pots whose shape was inspired by the moulds of shellfish traps.
The space for dialogue was strengthened with the aim of broadening knowledge about the role cotton fibre has played in the history of Cabo Verde and in the construction of political and economic systems on a global scale, as well as the ways in which this fibre can become a source of income.
The project created a collaborative space between different fields, namely agroecology and the arts, responding to the need to revalue the rural interior of São Vicente and enhancing its contribution to restoring biodiversity and the rural landscape.