Context-aware translation drafts. Original English remains available.
Russian celebrates Daria and Adémidé’s family heritage; Igbo celebrates Lékan’s maternal roots.
Translation notes & sourcesSuggest a correction ↗TAPESTRIES / ÌDÍLÉ / DIASPORA
I accepted the official role of Ilé Olúkòtún Oró Diaspora Coordinator with humility and pride. It gives my work in culture, connection and careful remembrance a responsibility to other people.
Words in context: Ilé — home or family houseOlóyè — chief or titleholder More Yorùbá terms ↗
The family announcement, delivered through spokesperson Gboyega Adekanye, named me Diaspora Coordinator on 22 January 2023. I sought counsel from my mother and father before formally accepting two days later. I felt honoured by the trust and understood the role as work to be done with people, not a title to stand above them.
A family meeting in December 2022 had already called for stronger communication across the compound and its dispersed relatives. My acceptance speech set out a practical purpose: help willing members of Ilé Olúkòtún in the United Kingdom, elsewhere in Europe, North America and beyond reconnect with Oró, share ideas, and contribute to heritage and community development.
That conviction still guides me. I have steadily approached the role with pride in Yorùbá culture, respect for elders and interest in what young people can make of the knowledge they inherit. Invitations to family spaces are handled within the family; contact details and group links are not published here.
THE WORK IN PRACTICE
Connection is useful when it creates understanding and participation.
My early outreach helped willing relatives find the family conversation and hear news from Oró. A surname alone never establishes a relationship; participation and personal information belong under the family's own consent and privacy practices.
I encouraged reading, comparing sources and asking what distinguishes Oró within Ìgbómìnà and Yorùbáland. The family record, oríkì, academic work and community knowledge all have roles, but each makes different kinds of claims.
The early proposal to connect heritage education with technology and animation grew into the Tapestries direction. Its aim is to make history accessible across generations and borders while leaving interpretation open to review.
A THREAD FROM Ọ̀BÀ-ILÉ
In 2023, Chief Olúkòtún travelled with a family delegation to Ọ̀bà-Ilé in Yorùbáland. A family account describes a welcome by the Ọ̀lọ̀bà and local relatives, and a visit to a compound associated with Ilé Olúkòtún. The journey gave renewed attention to the remembered movement of Òbẹ̀nbẹ̀ Ìmìnjá from Ọ̀bà-Ilé toward Oró.
I did not present myself as part of that delegation. In the diaspora role, I help make its questions legible to relatives farther away: which places and names recur across accounts, what can documents establish, and who should be heard before a story is filmed? The family report is a valued source, while precise genealogies, dates and ranks still invite corroboration.
Explore the Orísun account ↗Explore the map and oríkì ↗The Òbẹ̀nbẹ̀ chapter ↗During his United Kingdom visit, I accompanied Chief Ahmad Babatunde Sanni (Takiti II), Olúkòtún of Oró, to Royal Greenwich. We wore agbádá and beads. In his account of the day, a guide asked where we came from, opening a conversation about Yorùbáland and the institutions that existed there before colonial rule.
We visited the Queen's House, where the Chief described sitting in the Queen's Bedchamber among portraits of British royalty. He also reflected on a bust of Queen Victoria and the histories of empire that such a collection brings into view. The encounter mattered to us as a chance to carry our own heritage into a place that tells another nation's history, and to speak about the two without reducing either to a photograph.
The Queen's House was commissioned by Anne of Denmark in 1616 and later completed under Henrietta Maria. That history gives a setting for the visit; the Chief's account of the welcome and conversation is his own first-person testimony. Read the museum's history of the Queen's House ↗
GREENWICH / SEPTEMBER 2026
The visit in photographs, with captions for context.
Yorùbá at Greenwich. Background softened with AI-assisted editing; the ship display remains visible.
With Ólóyè, the Olúkòtún of Oró, at Royal Greenwich. Background softened and text overlay removed with AI-assisted editing.
Sources: Family appointment announcement of 22 January 2023, my acceptance of 24 January 2023, a family account of the 2023 Ọ̀bà-Ilé visit delivered by Chief Olúkòtún and written by Gboyega Adekanye, the Chief's statement shared 29 September 2026, and two supplied Greenwich photographs. The visit statement is presented as his account. Private family messages, contacts and images of younger relatives are not reproduced.
For the wider Yorùbá historical setting. The family accounts and episode traditions on this page retain their own named sources.
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