Welcome to our center in Benin: Centre Académique des Arts Africains et d ́Écoutes de Grand-Popo. We offer accommodation and professional courses in traditional African instruments, Pan African dance, stilt dance, marionettes and batik in the beautiful beach side village of Grand-Popo.

Benin is a country rich with history and exciting places to visit. It is the old Dahome kingdom where you could find the Amazon worriors, all-female military regiment. It holds the cradle and living practice of Voudun, in the city of Ouidah you can find the “Porte de non-retour” where millions of slaves where deported from Africa and a python temple where you can visit and hold sacred snakes. A trip down the mono river is memorable and Togo is just around the corner. Here is a small video clip from an excursion.

Grand-Popo offers you a place of peace and stillness where the sound of the waves is heard anywhere in the village. The garden in our center with medicinal herbs has a special tranquility to it, why not lie in the hammock underneath the mango tree to contemplate.

We help with your travel arrangements so you can enjoy Africa with all its splendor! You can download our course book or visit our separate homepage for more information at Centre Académique des Arts Africains et d ́Écoutes de Grand-Popo for instance some pictures from the inside of our center.

For the children

The main purpose though of our center is to to stimulate the local children of lesser means and offer them free workshops and concerts in different forms of art. Our hope is to give them a alternative platform to stand on for the future. During the Christmas break of 2011 we opened our doors to the children of Grand-Popo with workshops in manufacturing and manipulation of marionettes, dancing, singing and contes (storytelling). At Christmas Evening our garden held 52 happy children. The children also participated in the Grand opening concert of our Center. Click to see more on nonprofit work.