23 Dec At Ghana’s Kokrobitey Institute, Sustainable Design Has Always Been the Focus

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 travelling 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 Ghanaian 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.

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Source: Vogue