Our Mission

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The Oya Grove Preservation Project is a charity supported by Ile Arira, a non-profit organization in Maryland, USA. As African Traditional Spiritualists in the diaspora we are working to reclaim, restore, and remember our birthright, with the preservation of our heritage and history. Our mission is to promote the conservation, cultural tourism, and disaster management of the Oya shrine & sacred grove in Ira, Nigeria as well as continue to offer the Ile Arira Isese Oya Festival in the state of Maryland, USA annually for all those who wish to learn and experience the great Olori Orisa Oya.   

 

Join us in keeping watch over mankind’s greatest achievements, and support this call to action.

Oya Sacred Grove Preservation Project
 

The Oya-Ira Sacred Grove is a large cultural landscape of undisturbed forest near the city of Ira in southwestern Nigeria. Dedicated to Oya, the Yoruba goddess of transformation, the area was established more than four centuries ago and is the largest of the sacred groves that have survived to the present.

 

Sacred groves used to be found near every Yoruba settlement, but their disappearance over time has made Oya-Ira an important reference point for Yoruba identity and the Yoruba diaspora. The historic landscape remains a place of worship and plays host to an annual festival in November each year. Ile Arira of the USA is dedicated to the preservation of this historic site in Ira, Nigeria. This year we will be launching a beautification project to include the following:

Conservation management, cultural tourism, and disaster risk management plans are prepared, and a higher percentage of funds from the Ile Arira’s Oya annual festival will be allocated to conservation work.