The Jekawili organisation’s action in the poor districts of Bouaké, the country’s second city, was started in 1999 by a group of social workers, including Nantégué Koné. They set themselves three goals: providing aid for children in the areas of healthcare, nutrition and education; providing aid in the form of microcredit for widowed or abandoned women; and providing aid for old people abandoned by their children in the form of supplies, medical care and repatriation aid for non-Ivorians.
Jekawili is a partner of the Dakar-based NGO ENDA Third-World in activities for the protection of children. Nantégué Koné met Patrick Atohoun, at the time a group leader in the Hêvié Centre, in the Archdiocese of Cotonou, during a visit to Benin organised by ENDA Third-World in 1999. He introduced him to the movement’s actions and the organisation became a member of Emmaus International in 2003.
