Sirakélé is a village and seat of the commune of Songoua in the Cercle of Koutiala in the Sikasso Region of southern

Mali Mali (; ), officially the Republic of Mali,, , ff, 𞤈𞤫𞤲𞥆𞤣𞤢𞥄𞤲𞤣𞤭 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤𞤭, Renndaandi Maali, italics=no, ar, جمهورية مالي, Jumhūriyyāt Mālī is a landlocked country in West Africa. Mali ...

.. The village is 15 km north of

Koutiala Koutiala ( Bambara: ߞߎߕߌߊߟߊ tr. Kutiala) is a city in Mali in the administrative region of Sikasso, and is located 140 km north of the city of Sikasso. Koutiala serves as the capital of its administrative Cercle, home to 575,253 peop ...

. The town has both an elementary and middle school. The mayor's name is Yaya Traore. In partnership with the women's and men's

agricultural cooperative An agricultural cooperative, also known as a farmers' co-op, is a cooperative in which farmers pool their resources in certain areas of activity. A broad typology of agricultural cooperatives distinguishes between agricultural service cooperati ...

s in Sirakele, the World Vegetable Center (AVRDC) and

ICRISAT The International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is an international organization which conducts agricultural research for rural development, headquartered in Patancheru (Hyderabad, Telangana, India) with several r ...

lead trainings and do surveys on nutrition and seed (primarily millet and sorghum) research. To complete these projects, they often partner with the Koutiala office of Malian Association for Food Security and Sovereignty (AMASSA), a branch of the French NGO

Afrique Verte Afrique verte ("Green Africa") is a French NGO engaged in the Sahel region of Africa, specifically Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Its objective is to ensure food security Food security speaks to the availability of food in a country (or geograp ...

History

COLLECTIE TROPENMUSEUM Twee jonge ossen worden getraind in het trekken van een ploeg TMnr 20016782

The French explorer René Caillié stopped at Sirakélé on 17 February 1828 on his journey to

Timbuktu Timbuktu ( ; french: Tombouctou; Koyra Chiini: ); tmh, label=Tuareg, script=Tfng, ⵜⵏⴱⴾⵜ, Tin Buqt a city in Mali, situated north of the Niger River. The town is the capital of the Tombouctou Region, one of the eight administrativ ...

. He was travelling with a caravan transporting

kola nut The term kola nut usually refers to the seeds of certain species of plant of the genus ''Cola'', placed formerly in the cocoa family Sterculiaceae and now usually subsumed in the mallow family Malvaceae (as subfamily Sterculioideae). These cola ...

s to

Djenné Djenné ( Bambara: ߘߖߋߣߣߋ tr. Djenne; also known as Djénné, Jenné and Jenne) is a Songhai people town and an urban commune in the Inland Niger Delta region of central Mali. The town is the administrative centre of the Djenné Cercle, on ...

. In his book ''Travels through Central Africa to Timbuctoo'' published in 1830, he refers to the village as Saraclé. Caillié wrote:

At eleven o'clock we stopped at Saraclé, a little walled village, having a very well supplied market. At the entrance of the village I observed a well: the soil in which it was dug, consisted of greyish earth, mixed with sand and gravel. The well was from fifteen to eighteen feet in depth, and the water it contained clear and pleasant to the taste. It had no enclosure, and near to it was a great hole, into which the negresses throw the water in which they wash their clothes. Although this water was very dirty, both men and women washed their faces in it every morning; and many persons belonging to our company followed their example.

History

Geography

References

Sources