Social Campaign Wrap Cloth

Manufactured by Arewa Textiles Ltd. in Kaduna, Nigeria, these two lengths of wrap cloth were made to promote Nigerian head of state, and later president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s Operation Feed the Nation (OFN) campaign in 1976.

In the mid-1970s, Nigeria's overheating economy and declining agricultural production resulted in a "deteriorating food situation" as subsistence farmers abandoned their fields en masse to grow cash crops or live in urban centres (1). Intended to revitalize small-scale farming with a new generation of young farmers to increase domestic food production in the nation, OFN was an agricultural extension program that ultimately resulted in minimal tangible changes beyond the general awareness of food production issues (2).

These textiles depict scenes of people harvesting crops and preparing food in pastoral scenes that show men, women, and children participating in agricultural production. Each is printed with three colours of dye on a white background with stylized borders on the top and bottom selvedge.

These two kanga were manufactured by Rivatex Eldoret in Eldoret, Kenya, to commemorate the third United Nations World Conference on Women held in Nairobi, Kenya from July 15th to 26th, 1985 (1). With over 1,900 delegates from 157 UN Member states, participants discussed policies for the global advancement of women and evaluated the progress made from the first conference held in Mexico City in 1975 (2).

The most prominent motif found on both kanga is the logo for the International Women's Year, designed by Valerie Pettis in 1975 (3), which combines a mathematical equals sign, UN dove logo, and a Venus symbol to denote femininity. Unlike typical kanga—which are rarely manufactured with tourists in mind and do not usually feature English text—these cloths were probably intended for consumption by visitors to Nairobi for the conference.

The green and white kanga (1999.32.2) consists of a pair of identical kanga, each approximately 160 cm long, still attached together. Kanga are typically sold in pairs (known as doti) so customers can separate the cloth and are able to gift the identical kanga to friends or relatives.

This kanga, printed by Urafiki Textile Mill in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, for the Tanzania-China Friendship Textile Company (FTC), was created to promote conservation efforts in three environmentally protected areas in Tanzania. The three locations printed on this textile—Serengeti National Park, Ngorongoro Conservation Area, and Mikumi National Park—represent diverse ecosystems including savannah, grasslands, and woodlands regions.

The animals depicted on this kanga are species that live in these habitats: Maasai giraffes flanking the central medallion and plains zebra in the corner of the mji, with lions, wildebeest (gnu), African buffalo, black rhinoceros, African leopards, and African bush elephants forming the pindo (1).

The jina of this kanga reads, "UBAYA HAUNA KWAO MOLA NISITRI NA NJAMA ZAO," which is an anti-poaching message that translates to, "God protect me from their evil plans" in Kiswahili.