Adama Diop Ndiaye

When I was around 8 years old, we had a neighbor who was beating his wife. The lady would come to our house seeking help, and my dad would mediate. I saw all this happen. One night, the lady came out, and the husband asked her to the leave the house and go back to her father’s house. She had nothing. I was so mad, I cannot forget that, and I’m 42 today. It was really clear to me that women in Africa needed help. Growing up, I would talk about it with my father--he’s very open and he raised us that way. We were able to discuss issues in society like domestic violence. Little by little, he pushed us to do what we wanted to do. For me, it was very clear: I wanted to be a businesswoman, but at the same time, I wanted to use any money that I made to help people. My grandmother would say, “Oh, she has a huge heart. All she does is spread her wealth around.” When I was in my twenties, I began to use those resources to empower women who were not in the same situation. I would give them some money to start a business, I would teach them budgeting the way I understood it at the time: when you spend something, you want to make a profit so you don’t lose money. If you buy something for one dollar, make sure you sell it for three or four dollars. This is something I wanted to do ever since I was little, it was inside of me. I did not plan to do it because my plan was to be a businesswoman and make money, I wanted to empower people. And that’s how I got to this work. After the Human Rights Advocates Program ends, I am hoping to look more at working at the foundations level. I’m hoping to be able to provide grants for marginalized populations.

What I have enjoyed the most about the Human Rights Advocates Program was the fact that I met all these Advocates from outside the US who are doing extraordinary work, and despite being from different locations, we are able to relate to each other on the work that we do. It doesn’t matter if you are in the US, Greenland, Rwanda, or South Sudan. We have the same issues. This is priceless—I don’t think we could get this anywhere else. I grew from this experience. Another favorite aspect is the capacity-building aspect of the program. The fund-raising session was a wonderful experience, because the facilitator came with simple ways of doing fundraising, and we learned that a funder is more impressed by a few pages of information that are clear and understandable over 50 pages that are not.