About Us
BARKA is:
-Co-creating a replicable model for the eradication of extreme poverty (by acknowledging the keystone of accessibility to clean water)
-Working with and toward the empowerment of women
-Bringing the indigenous voice to a seat at the table (and sharing their spiritual wisdom traditions with the modern world)
-Education (curriculum-based programs and educational cultural exchanges)
-BARKA Networks (Film, TV, Radio, Publishing, Concerts, Tours, Events)
-Peace building (put it all together and that's what you get– a new way of living together within a global village, a peaceful revolution leading to a sustainable future for our children's children's children)
In 2004 The BARKA Foundation was formed in order to preserve, learn and disseminate indigenous spiritual healing traditions and to create the conditions for those wisdoms to be shared with the West. Component parts of that mission include developing a relationship of reconciliation and reciprocity between indigenous and post-modern civilizations, and to bring the indigenous voice to a prominent seat at the table of world discourse on the crises facing our planet at this time.
SPIRITUAL PURSUITS LEAD TO HUMANITARIAN ONES
Through the course of repeated visits to Burkina Faso, BARKA's current area of geographic focus, and through fostering ties with several UN agencies, these spiritual endeavors led to a shift in focus and a dedication to the achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Burkina Faso so that its people could meet the basic needs for human survival. The degree of poverty especially for the rural part of the population is so extreme that it became impossible not to work to change it. It is our mission to work in collaboration with others to effect positive change through the eradication of poverty within Burkina and to create a model for how such a task can be replicated worldwide.
BARKA is currently working with schools, youth groups, women's associations, faith-based organizations, businesses, artists, political and civic leaders both in the US and Burkina Faso to build bridges between Africa and the US in service of creating a culture of peace.
This website is an invitation to you to join hands with us to accomplish this ambitious task and to show the world how it can be achieved and replicated.
BARKA NETWORKS
BARKA Networks is the media production arm of the organization. It consists of:
- Yessai Baba Productions (TV, Film, Music, Radio)
- Concerts, tours & events
Revenue from BARKA Networks is used to fuel the work of the foundation.
The BARKA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) charitable organization based in Housatonic, Massachusetts and Burkina Faso, Africa.
BARKA is particularly interested in applying its work toward impacting policy change, corporate social responsibility and the re-configuration of humanitarian aid distribution in order to prioritize the protection and preservation of the planet's remaining indigenous cultures.
CO-FOUNDERS
BARKA was co-founded in 2004 by Ina & Esu Anahata (Esu is also known as Howard Ross Patlis) out of a passionate need to be of service at this time of global crisis. This work is their surrender to that call.
BIOS
Ina is a published singer/songwriter; fifteen of her songs are published in the Women with Wings songbook. Her song “Gratitude” is sung throughout the world. She is a hands-on healer, having developed her own form of transformational bodywork during a 13-year practice. Ina is a licensed reverend through the Temple of the Feminine Divine and is a trained diviner who has studied in both Africa and the US to learn the sacred art of stick and voice divination. She has had the privilege of working with shamans in Africa, the Peruvian Amazon and Ecuador. In the US she has worked with Native American elders and medicine keepers.
Esu is a producer by trade. A former theatre director, actor and playwright, he was part of the launch team of two cable TV stations, FOX’s FX and CNNfn where he developed original programming. After years as a video editor and television producer Esu worked in the field of digital media on the Internet at such companies as RealNetworks, Microsoft, Entriq, Ruckus and others pioneering the convergence of media and technology. In 2001 he successfully launched an independent consulting business specializing in promotional marketing, branding and digital distribution. In 2004 he co-founded The BARKA Foundation with Ina. It became clear that all the skills Esu learned in the corporate world would be needed for this ambitious task.
In Fada N’Gourma and La Petite Village, Ina is known as Pochilo, which means light of the moon. Esu was given the name Yieni Ye, which means light of the sun.
Ina & Esu have two permanent residences, a mud hut in La Petite Village, Burkina Faso and a small cabin on a lake in unorganized territory Maine with no electricity or running water.
