Coming soon
Askiya is coming home
Our new website is on its way, and so is something bigger: Daieplay, Liberia’s first MakerVillage, on 300 acres we own at Kpaytou, Nimba County.
The new site opens January 1, 2027
Until then, here is where we are, and how you can help today.
What the names mean
A home for every child who shares the dream
We built cooperatives across West Africa for years. They worked, until they hit a ceiling: the land was never theirs, so neither was the control. So we’re starting again, on land we own.
Our goal is simple. Every child of West Africa who shares this dream can come home, to their own home, and help build it.
From aid to trade. From owning the land to owning the value. Come build with us.
Nell Nanue Paye, founder
Where we are today
We’re relaunching. The land is bought and surveyed, the plans for Daieplay are drawn, and we are inviting the first partners, Fellows and build teams to start with us.
- 2014–2019Nine cooperatives, five countries
- 2019–2020The lesson: the land was never theirs, so neither was the control
- 2021300 acres bought at Kpaytou
- NowThe relaunch: a new vision and its first partners
- 2027Daieplay is designed and the campaign launches
- Dry season 2028–29Ground breaks (Liberia’s building season, November to April)
- 2030The Welcome Center opens, with the first Nanue Grove cabin
- 2033The Frank Pinder Research Center opens
- 2034–35Recruitment opens, and the first Polytechnic students arrive in 2035
- 2037The whole village is running, pays its own way, and starts funding the next MakerVillage
Why Daieplay
What our first village is built to solve
Farming carries rural Liberia, yet the people who farm stay poor. In Nimba County, smallholders lose over 40% of their harvests for lack of local processing, and the value of what survives is made somewhere else.
Daieplay answers with five quarters on 300 acres we own: the Welcome Center, the Frank Pinder Research Center, the Agroecology Farm, the Daieplay Polytechnic Institute and Nanue Grove.
Five problems, five answers
- 01
The plantation economy
Farmers work as laborers on their own land, or wait on aid.
Daieplay: following Frank Pinder, communities keep their land and turn cocoa, cassava and timber into finished goods.
- 02
All theory, no practice
Graduates memorize, but have never worked the land.
Daieplay: the Polytechnic joins science with West African knowledge and field mastery on a 100-acre farm.
- 03
Experts from abroad
Projects import foreign managers; locals get low-wage jobs.
Daieplay: homegrown ecopreneurs, scientists and managers who run MakerVillages of their own.
- 04
A changing climate
Flash floods, heat and pests wipe out harvests.
Daieplay: the Pinder Research Center tests natural pest control, water retention and agroforestry on the farm.
- 05
Plans without a model
National plans call for change, with no working example.
Daieplay: a village anyone can visit and copy, for Liberia and all of West Africa.
The ideas behind it
The vision of Askia the Great and Frank Pinder, brought to life
Askia Muhammad built the Songhai Empire on knowledge, land and enterprise held together. In the 1940s, Frank Pinder of Florida A&M came to Liberia and argued for research that served small farmers rather than plantations. Daieplay is built to finish the work they began.
Farmers should never be laborers on their own land.
Growing now in Rhode Island
While we build Daieplay, we’re already growing here
In Rhode Island, Askiya grows West African vegetables with local farmers and puts them on the tables of seniors and families on WIC through our CSA. This season’s harvest is in, and we’re getting ready for 2027.
Volunteer with us starting in March. Help start the seedlings and prepare the ground, then come back for planting and harvest through the 2027 season.
Askiya Rhode Island in the news
Don’t wait for the new site
Be part of the first chapter
The people who back Daieplay now are the ones who make the first village possible. Give a gift, or talk with Nell about partnering, building or bringing your students. Questions? Write to contact@askiya.org.