Aoua Keïta | Unisex Organic Oversized T-shirt

Material: 100% organic combed ring-spun cotton

Fabric weight: 200 g/m²

Fit: loose, with dropped shoulders

Set-in sleeves

1 × 1 ribbed neckline

Self-fabric neck tape at the inside back

The fabric of this product is certified for its organic cotton content.

At United Souls, artists enjoy complete creative freedom. For her second collaboration with the brand, Afi Kodjobi Tchoukpa dedicates her drawing to Aoua Keïta.

Inspired by naïve art, her pared-back, spontaneous style celebrates Aoua, adorned with a beautiful Sahelian ribbon headdress and a pendant shaped like Africa.

For United Souls, these elements embody this pioneer of African women’s emancipation. This second creation reaffirms the trust placed in Afi’s sensitivity and distinctive artistic vision.

A PIONEER OF AFRICAN WOMEN’S EMANCIPATION
AOUA KEÏTA (1912–1980) – MALI

Born in 1912 in Bamako, Aoua Keïta was her country’s first midwife. Posted to Gao in 1931, she secured the opening of a maternity clinic in 1934. An anticolonial activist, she mobilised and united women wherever she worked, notably helping the Sudanese Union – African Democratic Rally (US-RDA) gain momentum.

Facing a hostile environment and the personal upheaval of divorce, she fought to improve women’s lives, notably by founding a women’s mutual aid association in Nara. A trade unionist convinced that politics could not remain a male preserve, she became her country’s first woman elected to parliament in 1959.

She helped draft Mali’s family code and also served as Secretary-General of the Pan-African Women’s Organization, which established African Women’s Day on 31 July. Exiled to Brazzaville after the coup against Modibo Keïta, she wrote her autobiography, Femme d’Afrique, in 1975, before returning to Bamako, where she died in 1980.