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When Renée C. Neblett first set eyes on the town of Kokrobite, she thought it was paradise. The Atlantic Ocean seemed to bow at its pristine beaches, about an hour west of Ghana’s capital of Accra. There were turtles making their way out of the water; mollusks and clams laid out on the rocks. “You had to dodge the crabs on the sand, it was so abundant,” she remembers.
As a Boston native, Neblett “had never been anywhere there wasn't a corner store.” She was equally in awe of the fishing town’s locals, who seemed intimately familiar with every tree, leaf, and root as well as the myriad of ways they could be used. “To be quite frank, I was completely overwhelmed by an intelligence I didn't have,” she says.
The year was 1989, and Neblett had been traveling through Africa to identify a suitable site that could host a short-term academic program for her students at the prestigious Milton Academy, where she was an artist-in-residence. It is on this beach that she envisioned her life’s work—as both an educator and artist—thriving. Three years later, Neblett officially founded the Kokrobitey Institute.
Neblett, 74, had lived through the Civil Rights movement, then studied in Germany. She remembers her time in Europe as "unfettered years of not being confronted on a daily basis with racism and identity." She hoped that the Kokrobitey Institute would be a place where the students at Milton Academy could have a similar experience, though the center’s mission is manifold.
Today, the Kokrobitey Institute is a sprawling green campus, designed by the late Ghananian architect Alero Olympio. It is a place where innovative products and ideas are created to not only benefit those in the local community, but also the environment. Neblett has created an oasis of interdisciplinary learning that focuses on education, culture, sustainability, and responsible design. She hopes to empower generations to live and work sustainably.
“Anyone who has met Renée can tell you, she is incredibly inspiring and motivating as she is truly always inspired and motivated herself,” Elise McMahon, Kokrobitey’s Director of Design Programs, says. She is based between Hudson, New York, and New York City, where she runs a furniture and interior design studio LikeMindedObjects. McMahon was first introduced to Neblett six years ago by a friend who attended a Kokrobitey program. She now spends up to three months of the year at the Institute.
Thousands have been impacted by Neblett—affectionately called “Auntie Renée” by all—and Kokrobitey over the last three decades. The institute has hosted study-abroad students, entrepreneurs, and creatives who have attended learning programs, internships, residencies and incubations. Neblett also works with the residents of Kokrobite village, providing training and creating jobs.
The curriculum is expansive: Kokrobritey offers programs in fashion/textile, household product design, woodcraft, welding, glass recycling, jewelry making and beauty/skin-care product development, to name a few. One upcoming three-week course, to be held in January 2022, focuses on Textile Waste-Driven Design.
“We started to think about how we could make something and how we could employ people from that,” Neblett explains. “Because even though education is really important, it's difficult to get people who are struggling every day to sit and listen to you, or engage in critical thinking if they can't figure out how they're going to make a living.”
The institute’s latest fashion collection is a manifestation of that point of view. In December, the Kokrobitey Institute design team will be launching the K.I. Design WOTE Collection 2021. Neblett led a team of six to create 30 vibrant gender-neutral pieces that fuse “African culture, the mother of modernity with its classic clean lines and love of color, with an urban energy.”
It is also made entirely of recycled denim and cotton.
Since the 1960s, much of the developed world’s retail waste has been sent to Ghana. And with the rise of fast fashion, the amount of secondhand clothing has become a scourge. In the center of Accra is the Kantamanto Market, one of the largest secondhand clothing markets in West Africa. Over 15 million garments are delivered weekly to a country of 30 million people, according to the OR Foundation’s Dead White Man’s Clothes project. Based on their research that explores the secondhand clothing trade in Ghana, 40 percent of the clothing traded in Kantamanto—equivalent to a million pounds of clothing—finds its way to a landfill every week.
“You have all the trash of a modern Western life without its resources,” Neblett says. “And to add insult to injury, under the guise of philanthropy or doing good, you get this influx of used clothing, which is horrific. Developing nations are used as dumping grounds, essentially.”
The recycled material in the new collection, sourced from the Kantamanto Market, is a reimagining of this waste, using batik to stylize the garments. It will debut at The LOTTE, a curated boutique in Accra, though items will be available online soon.
Like those who helped bring this collection to life, the students who pass through Kokrobitey are often changed for life, McMahon says. “I have seen these students come back to visit—still calling [Neblett] Auntie and expressing how her lessons in their younger years were foundational in their development of career and life goals.”
“Hearing people trace lessons and experiences back to times with Auntie Renée and the institute has become a norm,” she adds, “and those people are clearly taking actions and making change in their own worlds.”
