Nka Foundation

human capital development through focus on the arts

About us

Nka Foundation (Nka is an African word for artistry) is a non-profit organization founded in 2005. Nka Foundation was established as a network of Arts Village and arts-based community projects in Africa and other industrially developing parts of the globe.

Nka Foundation exists to enable human capital development through focus on the arts. Nka does this by bringing together arts practitioners, innovators, supportive institutions and the public for collaborative relationships to enable cultural bridges, community projects, and arts education. Its vision is to create a synergy between the arts and the community to support continued development of livelihood skills, knowledge and personality attributes embodied in the ability to be productive members of society.

Activities
• Initiates and promotes artistic, humanitarian and educational projects or activities that build cultural bridges between Africa and the rest of the world.
• Leads or engages in skills development and social integration of the disadvantaged members of the society and any other free exercise of the arts designed to accomplish community ends.

In Ghana, the foundation has two arts village sites, Abetenim Arts Village near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region and Sang Arts Village near Tamale in the Northern Region. Each arts village offers 1-6 month project residencies and design-build camps open to all students and graduates of design, architecture, art, engineering and schools interested in rural community projects in Africa. Community arts interns, skilled volunteers, gap year students, career break, and retirement or time out from employment are also welcome to the arts village.

Programs:
• Community Arts Program: This program is suitable for community-spirited practitioners and students of the arts, as well as arts advocates who have a heart for Africa. By community arts or participatory arts, we refer to a world of artistic processes and forms made by, with, and for a community setting that may emphasize community involvement and collaboration. Most often it involves engagement with the issues and practices for communal bonds and empowerment for grassroots social change.
• Community Architecture Program: This is structured as a design-build camp to allow persons in the diverse areas of architecture to collaborate with artists or engineers along with local artisanal help to generate an alternative for social and aesthetic outcomes. Program is ideal for students and young professionals seeking to build their knowledge and skill sets in grassroots International Development, or in interdisciplinary site-specific projects for knowledge sharing and cross-fertilization of skills.
• Social Service Program: The project offers international participants a unique opportunity for cultural immersion through working with children, the elderly and young adults to improve rural livelihood skills, to alleviate health, to inspire decent housing, to enrich education, or to research a local condition that perpetuates poverty to look for remedies. All students, recent graduates and teachers of social work, psychology, sociology, theology, education and African studies are welcome to bring their gifts to the question: How do you create permanent long-term change in light of the rural conditions that perpetuate poverty?

Barthosa Nkurumeh is the Projects Director of the Nka Foundation in the USA.

For other net participants we can offer overnight facilities. Also we can offer an expert guidance through trained staff, give an expert opinion, procure expert information and establish new contacts in the field of arts, land architecture, vernacular African architecture, social work in Africa. Project space in Ghana and Burkina Faso for community arts, community architecture, and social services.