Awra Amba RJ 300612 EN - Contacter un comité local d'Attac

Awra Amba, a current experiment of utopian socialism
diversified into weaving, milling and trade. The cooperative owned in 2010 a weaving workshop, a
mill, shops and an Isuzu truck (Jo10b/7).
A first mill was donated in 2002 by the regional government through the Amhara Development
Association, and since then the cooperative has continued to develop this activity. In 2010 it owned
six electric mills for tef, maize and sorghum from the village and from neighbouring farmers
(Jo10b/7): see Picture 8. Three new mills were added at the beginning 2012, one for tef, the second
for maize and the last for husking rice (Crespo, 2012). "Neighbouring farmers prefer to use our mills
because they trust us not to cheat them", according to one of the villagers (Halpern, 2007): it allows
the clients to drop their grain off in morning and to get the flour back in evening, rather than to wait
on the spot the flour to be ready as it is the case somewhere else; a second reason is the price, lower
than in the neighbouring mills: 0.20 birr per kilo of flour, instead of 0.25 to 0.30 (Crespo, 2012).
The community owned also a breezeblock spinning and weaving workshop with corrugated iron roof
(Picture 4 on page 29). The building was paid for in 2007 by the Netherlands and the Ethiopian
government (ESRDF) (Ya08/120), as well as five steel looms (Picture 8). The cooperative acquired
also eight steel looms and six wood looms. All these looms are operated by hand. The cooperative
would like to have electric machines, which are less tiring (Jo10b/7). Spinning is considered an easy
job, and is done in the same building. The village produces shirts, dresses, skirts, tablecloths, scarves,
hats, towels, blankets and other garments (Mamo, 2006), sold on site, in their shops of Woreta and
Alem Ber, and on markets. The main customers of the cooperative products are the merchants,
visitors, farmers and weavers from the neighbouring kebeles (Ya08/109).
Picture 8:
Cooperative: mill (notice the cross on the breast of the young man under the mill,
which points at him as neighbour), and steel loom (pict. C. Crespo).
The cooperative owns also several shops – the main grocery shop of the village, two small shops in
the village, and two shops in the neighbouring cities of Woreta and Alem Ber (Jo10b/7), and the
coffee shop of the village. The grocery shops of the village serve the residents of Awra Amba and
neighbouring villages (Picture 9). The coffee shop is the heart of the village where people meet,
gossip and debate about every day things as well as big philosophical matters (Tervo, 2009). It does
not serve coffee neither alcohol, which are considered addictive and a threat to mental well-being,
but a lot of tea and soft drinks. The prices are 1 birr for a drink and 4 birrs for a dish.
The Isuzu truck, recently purchased, is used for the supply of raw cotton in Addis Ababa, for the
transport of finished products, and for the neighbouring villages against payment (Crespo, 2011).
Finally, the cooperative has a guest house equipped with toilets (a simple but clean room costs
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