Starting in 1999, through arts exchanges and ever since, we have been building cross-cultural relationships between West Africa and the U.S. In 2007, we quickly pivoted to formalize our organization; while seven of our members were trapped in a house under Martial Law in Conakry, Guinea, our team initially conceptualized Lanyi Fan Nonprofit, INGO in response to the political instability that was making resources increasingly difficult to access. We began to imagine a situation that would better support the Guinean people, the environment, and the rest of the world. Housebound, we generated our founding name, Lanyi Fan. “Lanyi Fan”, or in English “peace is good within oneself, between people, with the environment, and the higher powers”, is our current vision statement.  

 

Once Martial Law lifted in 2007, we formed both our Lanyi Fan NGO in Guinea and our nonprofit in the U.S. Since then, via cross-border exchanges between and within West Africa, we inspired two additional NGOs to form in alignment with our mission and vision: Ben Kadi in Bamako, Mali (2012) and Diam Welli (in the Poular language) or Jamm Dafa Baax (in the Wolof language) in Dakar, Senegal (2015).

 

Currently, we are transitioning from being a fiscally sponsored nonprofit project to obtaining our own 501(c)(3) nonprofit, public charity in the U.S. We continue to interweave cross-border learnings to richly inform our mission/vision, exchange/education programs, and projects. Contact us to get involved in our efforts to build peaceful, long-term solutions that benefit us all.