The El-Eija Project

The El-Eija Project is a project I decided to run in memory of my best friend, El-Eija Ebony Nichols.

The idea stemmed from a social action project we ran together on the Wycombe Youth Council, where we wrote kind messages on cards and handed them out to strangers.

Memorial Video

My story with El-Eija

My name is Bethany Bravington, and El-Eija Ebony Nichols was my best friend.

El-Eija and I met through Wycombe Youth Action. I remember the first day they came to have a look around the youth club in 2017 with their family fondly, as it would be the start of a long friendship, although neither of us knew that yet!

El-Eija and I quickly became very close, and spent lots of time together, exploring the world around us and finding joy in going for long walks, creating art, or baking together. Our time was often spent laughing, and I have so many funny memories together. El-Eija was a friend I could completely be myself around.

I remember well the time I bought roller skates with them, and they dared me to wear them to our youth council meeting. We then spent a fun 20 minutes navigating through town, El-Eija holding my hand to prevent me from falling face first onto the ground. We arrived into the meeting by crashing into a few chairs.

We used to do so much together, El-Eija was an enormous part of my life and my family. We would spend Christmas Eves together and my family was very fond of them. We have a fridge magnet of a photo we all took on our last Christmas Eve together.

Losing the most important person in my life felt like something I would never recover from. Although it has now been over a year since I lost my best friend, sometimes the grief feels even more powerful than it was at the time. It's a lonely feeling to know I will never meet anyone like them for the rest of my life.

That's why I want to channel the grief into something that can bring joy into other people's lives. El-Eija always managed to light up my life no matter what I was going through. El-Eija suffered through so much, yet despite all their trauma was still able to laugh with me and was truly an inspiration. I want to be able to bring light to peoples lives in the way that El-Eija did for me.

Looking through all the photos and videos we had, makes me feel truly blessed that we got to spend so much time together. Being listed in a letter of reasons they wanted to live is such an honour. El-Eija Ebony Nichols was such an amazing person and I’m so lucky and grateful we got to be best friends.