Aklala Batik

Chantal Donvidé was born in Agomé-Kpalimé, Togo, the eldest of seven children in a family already rooted in craft: her father founded the Kpalimé Artisanal Center and her mother worked as a seamstress. Donvidé trained and worked as a seamstress herself until 1999, when a health crisis left her unable to work her sewing machine for months.

With financing from the Hanns Seidel Foundation, she trained in batik dyeing and used roughly 20,000 CFA francs left over from a former apprentice's training fees to start what became Aklala Batik, formally established in Kpalimé. Women there stamp and paint wax patterns onto white cotton, then dip the cloth in dye baths before it is cut and sewn into pagnes, bags, clothing and accessories.

The venture grew from a single workshop into a training center for disadvantaged young women and girls, later opening a second boutique in Lomé on Boulevard de la Victoire in 2017. The nonprofit NEST provided additional financing and business training as the operation expanded, and Aklala Batik now describes itself as having trained roughly 1,000 young women at its center over nearly two decades of work.