Gambian street party.
Kaya was started by Geoff Miles in the 1990's taking Drumming to schools and other organisations. Kaya is now run by Geoff's son Alex and has gone from strength to strength and to find out more go to: www.kayadrums.com
Alex continues to facilitate drum circles across the UK in schools, and other community groups, and with businesses for team building events. 12 years on, Geoff still runs fortnightly community drum circles in Wiltshire.
Whilst training with Drum Master, Libon Traore, in the Gambia, Geoff and Di Miles made friends with the local (mainly musician and dance) community. In order to raise money to build a school and support a community in The Gambia, they founded the charity, Afrikaya. To discover more click here and for the Afrikaya website go to: www.afrikaya.co.uk
Our drum teacher, Libon, now lives with his wife in Austria but we continue to regularly visit the Gambia to improve our skills with a wonderful young man from Guinea Conakry called Ibrahim Sori Conde (Sorel). If you wish to visit The Gambia to learn African drum and dance, please contact us and we will put you in touch with Sorel and his musician community.
This photo was taken by Pauline McCrann in February 2010. As well as Geoff and our friend Tony, you can see Sorel teaching them djembe, Sorel's brother Malicki Bongoura, and their friends Aboubacar Beng and Ansuman Kamara.
Over the years we have often been asked to supply good drums and percussion. We are now able to obtain for you some of the best from fairtrade and sustainable sources. The 4 djembes you can see in the photo above were made in the Drum Factory in Kotu and tuned by Sorel. The drums came back to the UK with us and were sold. All profits from the sale of our drums, percussion and other instruments goes directly to Afrikaya. If you are interested in purchasing a drum or other instruments, please contact us.
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