The Ayindisa Press Room

The following news article is about Ayindisa's founder Chris Gay, how Ayindisa, llc was founded, and presents a fundamental understanding for the overall goals and dreams of the Ayindisa business.

Sale here this weekend Ex-Ridgefielder's business aids African artisans

Author(s): Janet Stevens; Press Correspondent Date: November 29, 2007 Section: Business

How does a kid who struggled through his teenage years become a man who builds a socially responsible business? Christopher Gay created Ayindisa based on fair trade principles and practices, combining his passions for art, music and humanitarian service with African trade.

Ayindisa will be having an Out of Africa trunk sale on Dec. 1 and 2, from 10 to 4, at 690 Ridgebury Road.

Mr. Gay, now 32, went to school in Ridgefield through middle school and sophomore year in high school.

"Teenage years," he says, "were difficult for me, and I finished my high school education in an international boarding school in Arezzo, Italy, graduating with honors. After continuing at San Francisco State University and Southern Utah University, I came back to Ridgefield, graduating this year from SUNY Purchase, cum laude with a bachelor of fine art in sculpture."

He credits his parents, Robert and Lynette Gay, as major influences in what he's doing. "It was my mother who dragged the family, including me, to Ethiopia in 2002, and, without knowing it, changed my life," he said. "We were involved in a humanitarian project, and I simply wasn't prepared for the extreme poverty and suffering that I witnessed."

Since then, he has been working with the Ascend Alliance in the field, developing, leading and participating in projects designed to empower the poor.

Ayindisa

Mr. Gay created Ayindisa LLC after he became friends with an expert drum maker and player in Ghana in 2004. Ayindisa is from the Fra-fra dialect, spoken in a part of northern Ghana, meaning, "God is watching over you ... protecting you ... His hand is guiding all that you do." It officially became a business in the state of Connecticut in August 2006.

"However," said Mr. Gay, "Ayindisa's genesis actually occurred somewhere deep inside of me long before I ever met my new friend, while I was working in a remote African village with people the world seemed to have forgotten. Having spent many days looking into the eyes and holding the hands of thousands of suffering, yet extraordinary and humble, people, I made a promise to God and myself to never forget what I had experienced."

"Through my friendships," he said, "I have been introduced to artisans, craftsmen and musicians, as well as beautiful cultures, that are in direct contrast to some of the horrific things that I've seen and experienced there. It is the opportunity to share this beauty with the world and, in turn, help my friends, families, communities, and people in general that led me to create this socially responsible business based on fair trade principles and practices. It was Ghandi who said, “Be the change that you want to see in the world.'"

Sugarbeads

Doing business online and with merchants such as SugarBeads in Ridgefield, Ayindisa wholesales the African products - djembe drums, Khangas, beads old and new, batiks, clothing, handwoven baskets, tribal masks, and more.

Ayindisa is partnering with organizations such as Cornell University's Green Teen program in Beacon and Poughkeepsie, N.Y., and from $150 teens have earned selling vegetables, will be investing it in a garden project on their behalf either in Mozambique or Ethiopia in cooperation with Ascend Alliance.

"We will also," said Mr. Gay, "be doing some work with the The Foever Young Foundation in January 2008 when I go to Ghana to help them build schools. At that time Ayindisa will be doing some work in conjunction with Komart NGO in Ghana, helping manage loans for students in Africa."

Mr. Gay and his new wife, Chelsea Steinberg-Gay, recently moved to Beacon, N.Y., where they have an art studio and he does social sculpture.

He and his wife will be having an open studio art show on Dec. 8 and 9 at 554 Main St. in Beacon from 1 to 5. In the process of doing a major art project in Africa, they will show the work in New York sometime in 2008.

Copyright, 2007, The Ridgefield Press

Kyle W. Gay
Director of Marketing, Ayindisa LLC
Socially Responsible Artisan Handcrafts
42 Lake Ave, Ext. Suite 285.
Danbury CT, 06811
e: KyleG@ayindisa.com
w: www.ayindisa.com/
b: ayindisallc.blogspot.com

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The following news article is about Ghana's minister of chieftaincy, and his visit to Connecticut to discuss the building of the largest cultural center in West Africa. Founder of Ayindisa, Chris Gay is a partner in the project with Isaac Hirt-Manheimer of the Ridgefield Music Conservatory in Connecticut.

Culture minister of Ghana tells Marconi of chieftaincy
Author(s): Macklin Reid; Press Staff

Date: April 24, 2008 Section: News

A Ridgefielder plans for a performing arts center on the west coast of Africa, where American students could go bask in the artistic riches of traditional African culture, led to visit to town by a high official of the nation of Ghana.

Sampson Boafo, Ghana's minister of chieftaincy and culture, was escorted to town hall Isaac Hirt-Manheimer of Enchanted Garden Conservatory for the Arts on Route 7.

Mr. Hirt-Manheimer, who studied African drumming in Ghana as a college student, plans build an arts center there to serve "students interested in spending the summer in Ghana, learning the traditional arts," he said.

He spoke to a small gathering in town hall where Minister Boafo and three other Ghanaians First Selectman Rudy Marconi, Selectwoman Barbara Manners, Ridgefield Council of the Chairwoman Nancy Baldwin and Judith Cook Tucker, a music professor at Western Connecticut State University and head of Connecticut Folklife Project.

In addition to accommodating up to 60 visiting students on four-to five-week stays, the center would help Ghanaian artists practice and preserve their traditional culture and crafts."

The colonial era was devastating, and people were brainwashed into thinking the traditional arts were primitive and backward," Mr. Hirt-Manheimer said.

Now, Westerners' interest in traditional music and culture may help keep the old arts alive.

Colleges such as Wesleyan, Bard and perhaps Western Connecticut are interested in participating, he said.

Ridgefielder Chris Gay, founder and owner of Ayindisa LLC – Socially Responsible Artisan Handcrafts, a African crafts business that supports artisans in Ghana by selling their decorative and artistic items in the U.S., is a partner in the project.

Minister Boafo explained to his hosts in Ridgefield Town Hall how an aspect of Ghana's government - based in tradition, but adapted for modern times - has similarities to America's system of local, state and federal levels of government."

In Ghana almost every village has a chief," he said. "…Every community owes allegiance to a chief."There are paramount chiefs, and sub-chiefs owning fealty to them, down to a chief.

"When there's a dispute, you start locally and then you go to the Regional House of Chiefs and the National House of Chiefs," Mr. Boafo said.

It's similar to the old feudal system of Europe in that chiefs must be from an appropriate family, but are also selected through nominations and approvals of respected kingmakers.

The role of chiefs is traditional, cultural, subordinate to the elected government - parliament, the cabinet, the president - and chiefs are insulated from partisan politics.

"You don't do politics, partisan politics, Mr. Boafo said, "because, in times of crisis, you have to mediate."

"Maybe we should try that," Mr. Marconi said.He told Minister Boafo that Ridgefield, too, was working to enrich its cultural awareness.

"We're come a long way in our community with the arts and culture," he said, "really, to balance our community."

Copyright, 2008, The Ridgefield Press

Please visit ayindisa.com to learn about our work to educate and improve the world.

Kyle W. Gay
Director of Marketing, Ayindisa LLC
Socially Responsible Artisan Handcrafts
42 Lake Ave, Ext. Suite 285.
Danbury CT, 06811
e: KyleG@ayindisa.com
w: http://www.ayindisa.com/
b: ayindisallc.blogspot.com/