After Vodundays · Press room · ONG Wa Afriki
Ouidah is one of the great African stories of this decade. This page gives newsrooms what they need: verifiable facts, sourced figures, and ground access that isn't improvised.
740,668
Vodun Days 2026 participants, official figure
56
Nationalities represented in 2026
8-10 Jan
Vodun Days 2027, law of July 30, 2024
N°0108
MISP registration, ONG Wa Afriki, Benin
100
After Vodundays places, never more
65%
Of revenue returned to local stakeholders
The verifiable facts
Official figures, legal statuses, dates of law. A newsroom should be able to verify everything, and we provide the references on request.
Vodun Days, Benin's national holiday
Established in 1996 by presidential decree, codified by the law of July 30, 2024: the National Holiday of traditional religions falls on the second Friday of January. 2026 edition: 740,668 participants, 56 nationalities, 1.94 million cumulative visits across Ouidah's sites, official figures from the Beninese government. 2027 edition: January 7, 8 and 9, in Ouidah.
ONG Wa Afriki, registered, numbered, verifiable
A non-governmental organization under Beninese law, N°0108/MISP/SGM/DAIC/SACC/SA, IFU 6202683958025, bank account at UBA Ouidah branch. Formalities started in 2019, registration completed in 2022. In between: building the network of local alliances, host families, artisans, guides, that makes the program possible.
After Vodundays, the program
A program from January 6 to 10 (official core 7-9) extending the official Vodun Days, plus two programs open year-round. Teams of 10 (Standard) or 5 (VIP) per January edition. About 10 million FCFA generated per edition, 65% returned to local stakeholders in Ouidah and the surrounding region.
The Cloboto Tour and the Little Train of Ouidah
The Cloboto Tour, designed and operated by ONG Wa Afriki, connects the sites of the Slave Route in guided circuits, currently run by vehicle, commentary in four languages. The Little Train of Ouidah, a tourist train built around 18-passenger convoys, is the project's next step, in development, investor file open. One of the country's rare tourism projects entirely carried by a local NGO.
The African New Year 6263
ONG Wa Afriki carries the African New Year project in Ouidah, a full day bringing together traditional authorities, the diaspora and the general public around the ancestral African calendar. The dossier is complete and costed; it awaits funding.
The founder
Bertian Hounon, born in Ouidah in December 1996, grandson of Daagbo Hounon Houna I. A specialist in Vodun and the Fa oracle since 2016, heir to the Dossou-Yovo lineage, a family that has historically mediated between the African and Western worlds.
The festival in the world's media
These newsrooms have covered Vodun Days, the national festival our program extends. The story of After Vodundays itself, a Ouidah NGO opening to the diaspora what the festival cannot show, still remains to be told. We're saving it for whoever writes it first.
For newsrooms
The Little Train of Ouidah, the infrastructure an NGO is building
A local NGO already operating its guided circuits on the Slave Route, now building its own tourist train, with no foreign capital, with guides from the city. A story of local engineering being written in real time, that no one has told yet.
65%, the model roots-tourism is looking for
While Ghana's Year of Return faces documented criticism over excluding local communities, a Beninese NGO applies the opposite: 65% of revenue returned, families paid with no middleman, verifiable accounts.
The nationality of the ancestors, and the trip that embodies it
Benin's My Afro Origins law grants citizenship to descendants of the deported. In Ouidah, the port of embarkation, a program accompanies that return on the ground. The only country in the world where the administrative story and the spiritual story meet.
Leaving with the name of your lineage
A Fa consultation, UNESCO intangible heritage since 2008, led by Ouidah's Bokonons for diaspora members who arrived with a DNA test and left with a lineage. Where genealogy stops, tradition continues.
The African New Year 6263
Three days in August 2026 bringing the global diaspora together around the ancestral African calendar, in Ouidah, the city of memory. A pan-African event born of a neighborhood NGO, not a ministry.
Press kit · On request
Fact sheet
All the verifiable facts on this page, official figures, statuses, dates, sources, consolidated into a single document available on request, with references.
Original photos
Images from past editions and the sites, public ceremonies, families, Cloboto Tour circuits, the Slave Route. Editorial use under ONG Wa Afriki credit. Closed ritual spaces are not photographed: it's a rule, not a limitation.
Interviews & field access
Connection with the founder, guides and, with prior consent, tradition-guardian families and dignitaries. Ground access for reporting depending on editorial angle and respect for the sacred.
ONG Wa Afriki · N°0108/MISP · Ouidah, Benin
We are not a PR agency. We are on the ground, in the neighborhoods, with the tradition-guardians, with the real figures of a tourism model that returns 65% of its revenue to the communities. This access, built since 2019, is open to newsrooms whose angle honors the subject.
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