Community Development

In many areas there were other festivals and celebrations that also brought in people and money. Many of these were actually separated from the community days to allow all people to attend all events. In Ijebu-Jesa, the Yam Festival was important to the population, and they made sure Ijebu-Jesa Day did not conflict with it. This celebrates the end of the harvest and West African culture.

The Iwude Festival is another one that is different than a community day. This is one of the largest festivals, and it is meant for the entirety of Ijesaland. It celebrates the people and culture through music, masquerades, and speeches.

In the 1980s, Lillian Trager worked for the Ford Foundation at a West African location in Lagos, Nigeria. She worked to help programs grow as well as develop programs whose focus was community development and women’s issues. Nongovernmental organizations made up a good portion that she was involved with. While some were more worried about their specific members, some genuinely worked to better smaller communities and areas.  These included market organizations, women organizations, craft associations, and hometown organizations. This was a major turning point in Trager's career because she shifted her research focus to hometown ties and community development. To do this, she found it extremely important to define development from the Ijesa people’s perspective, and she believed it was through the involvement of people in their community. This included the people who moved away and still identified with their hometown.  Trager believed this involvement and development could take place through multiple different approaches.