Sustainable Culture
AFA supports organizations and projects that sustain, regenerate, and preserve ecosystems, especially integrated, systems-based, and culturally-relevant approaches to community-building.
- Ose Ifa Community Healing Ritual; Every Sunday morning, Ifa priest Obafemi Origunwa opens his shrine in Oakland's Fruitvale district to host public orisa worship services. Since 2010, Obafemi has lead participants in prayer, meditation, divination and offerings to the ancestors and the deities to help individuals ascend the thrones of their personal destinies and serve the community at large.
- Isese Festival: The Isese Festival is a celebration of African history, culture and tradition. The Festival brings together all practitioners of African sacred cultures to enjoy traditional drumming, dancing, dress and food.
- Reading of the Year/Kwanzaa: New Year's Day coincides with the last day of Kwanzaa, which is Imani. Because Imani means faith, this is a perfect opportunity for members of our community to create a shared vision. By consulting Ifa as a collective, the members of the community enjoy a shared guideline for consistent behavior and accountability. When people pray together and seek the wisdom of the ancestors as a group, they make an agreement that transcends the differences that would otherwise divide them.
- Òrìsà Lifestyle Agreements (OLA16) is a movement that creates opportunities for all people to live the medicine of environmental stewardship by choosing small actions that have big impacts on the individual, her wallet and the local environment. Whereas Yorùbá spirituality represents the vision of sustainable culture, OLA16 is sustainable culture in ACTION.
- Orisa Lifestyle Retreat: The Annual OLA16 Retreat offers hands-on organizational and spiritual development. Strengthens systems thinking skills so participants can switch from reactive problem solving to creating new possibilities for holistic healing and growth. Provides a common language for talking about National change and building stronger relationships for continuing what we initiate in the two day retreat. Provides hands on training in the 16 Agreements of Orisa Lifestyle
Arts & Education
AFA supports projects that focus on sacred and traditional art forms that are holistic and therapeutic. Our existing projects include the following:
AFA supports projects that focus on sacred and traditional art forms that are holistic and therapeutic. Our existing projects include the following:
- Camp Iwalewa; Founded in 2001, Camp Iwalewa is an outdoor and arts summer day-camp for school-aged children. Camp Iwalewa uses nature exploration, Yoruba indigenous knowledge systems folklore, and performance arts to teach ritual proficiency, as well as spiritual development.
- ObafemiO.com; an online multimedia clearing house of information pertaining to Orisa Lifestyle. With over 300 videos, 700 pages of blog entries and numerous free downloads, ObafemiO.com is a worldwide hub for the dissemination of knowledge about everything related to Yoruba spirituality, especially as a pathway to emotional, mental and ancestral healing.
- Oriki Awon Orisa; A collaborative effort between Obafemi Origunwa and Ifayemi Fakoyade Abidemi, Oriki Awon Orisa is the first ever multimedia curriculum that teaches the art and the practice of òrìsà lifestyle. Particular attention is given to the sacred texts and rituals associated with òrìsà devotion. More precisely, Oriki Awon Òrìsà is a mini encyclopedia of worship materials, consisting of invocations, prayers and songs. With materials in print, audio, video and online, Oríkì Awon Òrìsà is perfect for the personal shrine or as a temple worship and study guide.
- Fundamentals of Orisa Lifestyle is a four-part course, which is based upon the book entitled, the Fundamentals of Orisa Lifestyle, is divided into 16 week classes. It is meant to answer many important questions about the PRACTICAL power of mythology, symbolism, initiation, rites of passage and destiny. Each 16 week class will include spiritual discourse, prayer, meditation, song and chanting! The Fundamentals of Òrìsà Lifestyle class is for anyone who is committed to making a meaningful contribution to the lives of others.
- The Orisa Lifestyle Academy (OLA16) is a training and certification program for helping health & human services professionals who want to facilitate Obafemi Origunwa's work on personal priesthood, community-building, and social change. We are a community of sincere practitioners who believe in living the medicine that will heal our lives and the lives of those we are destined to serve. Our goal is 1 million Orisa Lifestyle Agreements by 2040.
Food & Agriculture
AFA supports projects that address sustainable food and agriculture, including organic and indigenous farming techniques. Special attention will be given to projects that make use of a participatory approach to research that aims to tap into traditional knowledge and local farmers' understanding of sustainable farming practices and to blend this with scientifically developed improved technology.
Our proposed objectives are as follows:
- OLA16 Garden Shrine: Community Garden project, growing herbs, greens and spices.
Our proposed objectives are as follows:
- record indigenous knowledge systems;
- form a sustainable agricultural and natural resource management technology development consortium;
- conduct on-farm farmer oriented research;
- develop programs to validate farmer experimentation;
- facilitate innovator workshops;
- disseminate agricultural and natural resource management technologies (indigenous and introduced); and
- evaluate the technologies for their impact on sustainability, productivity, and equity.