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

4. Social organisation
20 birrs), and built and rents a house to teachers and another to schoolboys coming from far away
(Crespo, 2011; 2012).
Picture 9:
The village square, with on the left the big tree for meetings and in centre the grocery
shop; The village the grocery shop in January 2011 (pict. C. Crespo).
Globally, handcraft (spinning and weaving) is the main occupation for almost everyone (98 %),
farming the second occupation for 94 % of interviewed people, and trade the third occupation for
74 % of interviewed people (Ya08/99). Mekonnen (2009/38) states that subsistence agriculture
constitutes the main source of income, whereas for Jo10b/7, weaving is the main source of income of
the cooperative, followed by trade, then milling, finally the truck. The share of the various sources of
income is therefore not very clear (Question 22 in Annex).
Picture 10: Small house, exceptionally round, with its private loom, in 2010.
Mekonnen (2009/38) mentions also other activities such as beekeeping and the production of energysaving
stoves and other household utensils, using local materials and local technology. Weaving of
traditional clothes known as shemma is also practised by all with a family loom (Picture 10) and
provides a significant source of income during the dry season; every family gives 11 birrs a year for
its supply of cotton (Crespo, 2011). The families raise in addition hens, grow a few vegetables; some
produce honey; others have a zebu in the herd of the village and sell the milk in the coffee shop.
Since 2011-2012, the cooperative experimented cultures on compost with the help of Oromo
specialists (0.5 m 2 mini-gardens, vegetables on the sides of compost bags) and egg-laying hens with
advice of the government, whose food was bought (Crespo, 2012).
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