Our Team
CCDS aims to strengthen communities by providing public school students with an after school program, a rich potpourri of educational and recreational activities and by building women’s capacity to reinforce their skills, become entrepreneurs and further strengthen their families and communities.
Executive Director
Dieynaba Gaye
Enrichment Activities Director
Mariame Sy
Communications Director
Adeyemi Coker
Strategic Development and Partnerships Director
Education Program Director
Arjun Upadhyay
Monitoring and Evaluation Director
Seyni Mbaye
Dieynaba Gaye is the founder and Executive Director of the Center for Community Development Senegal. She is currently a Programs Operations Officer at Results for Development.
Ms. Gaye is a product of the Senegalese public school system; she is an advocate for children living and or schooled in unfavorable conditions. She is working to provide a safe and supervised after school education, health awareness, nutrition, enrichment, and recreation programs for Senegalese Youth enrolled in public schools. CCDS also aims for the emergence of an equitable society through the promotion of Children’s rights.
Ms. Gaye is a certified Project Management for Development Professional – PMD Pro. She holds a Master of Public Health from Trinity Washington University, an Executive Certificate in Non Profit Management from Georgetown University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from UCLA.
Professor Mariame Sy is a Lecturer in African Languages and the director of the African Language Program in the Department of Middle Eastern South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University. She began teaching Wolof in 2001 in the Linguistics Department at UCLA, and has since taught Wolof and Pulaar at several institutions, including the Summer Cooperative African Language Institute (SCALI) and The Colorado Project study abroad program in Senegal. She also teaches French in the African Languages Flagship Initiative summer program. Her publications include academic articles on the morpho-phonology and syntax of Wolof and she has two upcoming elementary level textbooks in Wolof and Pulaar (with Africa World Press, and the National African Language Resource Center).
She is also a co-developer of a Wolof video course and has designed a flipped classroom for beginning Introductory Wolof to provide students with supplemental technology-based opportunities to enhance proficiency in key areas of difficulty by practicing outside the classroom setting. Her current work focuses on developing a curriculum based on performance assessments and what learners should understand, know, and be able to do.
Adeyemi Coker is a Professional Communication Specialist and Researcher working in consultative capacities with established and start up organizations in the United States of America and the African continent.
Adeyemi served in a consultative capacity with the African Development Bank Group, an international financial institution with a mandate to provide financial instruments and logistical support for development on the continent of Africa. In his capacity as a Communication Specialist, Adeyemi worked with the Corporate Services Complex to develop and implement programs and projects that focused on sustainable capacity building, learning and development strategy, diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and cultural sensitivity training when dealing with internal and external clients.
Adeyemi Coker is a graduate of California State University, Los Angeles where he earned his undergraduate and graduate degrees in Communication Studies. He is an avid advocate for sustainable capacity building in developing nations.
Mame Dorine Gueye is a Pan-African cultural and media entrepreneur.
She founded the Etoile Africaine (African Star) magazine to contribute to the promotion of cultural and creative industries, entrepreneurship and talents. Almost a year ago she made the choice to start a business in the media after being employed for 15 years in major television channels in Africa.
After a degree in Applied Foreign Languages she obtained a higher diploma in TV production management. She started her career as an assistant in editing and camera at Canal Infos, then evolved as a production manager then as a manager and director of programs respectively at 2stv, TFm, Canal +, Chaines A + in Côte d’Ivoire and ITV.
She is committed and invested in encouraging women to assert themselves in positions of responsibility in media companies in particular.
She is convinced that the cultural and creative industries are the vectors through which our continent could carry its voice in the world and it is her duty to promote African talent and culture.
Arjun Upadhyay is an education specialist with over ten years of experience working on education sector analysis and reform in Africa and Asia.
He has led research projects on international education finance, early childhood development (ECD) costing and expenditure analysis, research on low-fee private schools, and has conducted numerous education program evaluations. In Senegal, Arjun has partnered with Lecture Pour Tous through his work with Results for Development (R4D) by offering evaluation and adaptive learning support. Prior to joining R4D, Arjun was an associate program officer at The Asia Foundation working on economic growth and education sector reform in the Philippines. He also consulted for the US Agency for International Development and the UN Institute for Training and Research.
Arjun holds a master’s degree in international development from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a BA in international relations and economics from the College of Wooster. He is a native speaker of English and is proficient in French. Outside of work, Arjun is a keen chef and is always looking for the next best meal, which usually is a thiebou yapp.
Seyni Mbaye has more than 5 years of experience in international development working on issues such as education, agriculture, water and sanitation, and entrepreneurship in Africa and the Americas.
Mr. Mbaye works as a program officer at Results for Development supporting the African Collaborative for Health Financing Solutions project on the design and implementation of the monitoring and evaluation portfolio of the ACS core and regional activities.
In addition to his professional activities, Mr. Mbaye is the cofounder and president of the Senegalese School of Success, an association that assists Senegalese high school graduates access higher education institutions all around the world via mentorship programs and capacity building activities.
Mr. Mbaye holds a master’s degree in development practice focusing on monitoring and evaluation, public health, and nonprofit management from the Humphrey School of Public Affairs. He holds a bachelor’s degree in international development from the University of Waterloo in Canada. Mr. Mbaye is fluent in English, French, and Wolof. He is conversational in Spanish.
Board of DirectorS
Board Director
Board member
Mme Diop Aissatou Gaye
Board member
Mr Mohamadou El Habib Ly est sorti des universités de Dakar et de Nancy avec un Doctorat de spécialité de Chimie Organique. L’essentiel de sa carrière a été fait dans la recherche agricole comme spécialiste des pesticides et de la protection des récoltes pour finir comme expert en recheche-développement.
Il a été assistant à la Faculté des Sciences de Dakar, chercheur puis Directeur General de l’Institut Sénégalais de Recherches Agricoles (ISRA), directeur du Service National de la Protection des Végétaux.
Directeur de l’Unité de Politique Agricole il a été chargé de la définition des stratégies et politiques agricoles, de la liaison avec les partenaires techniques et financiers; de la coordination des services et projets agricoles, des organisations paysannes et des ONG.
Enfin monsieur Ly a terminé sa carrière comme représentant de la FAO au Bénin. Ces différentes positions ont permis à Mr. Ly d’être membre de plusieurs conseils d’administration au niveau national et international.
Son passage a l’Ecole Normale William Ponty, et sa pratique du scoutisme ont developpé chez lui: la quête de la connaissance, l’efficacité dans l’action, et la nécessité d’être toujours prêt pour servir.
Mrs. Diop Aissatou Gaye graduated from the University of California Santa Barbara with a degree in Economics. She is a retired Real Estate Expert and was the Director of Dakar Immobilier, one of the first real estate agencies in Senegal that specializes in the management and rental of houses and offices.
Jennifer Hoffman is the Senior Director of Risk Management at Blackline, a software company which provides cloud-based solutions to companies globally to streamline accounting and finance operations. Prior to this role, she was a Senior Risk Advisor providing risk consulting to organizations from the public and private sectors. Hoffman has over 25 years of experience in risk management working in Europe and North and South America.
Hoffman developed her risk advisory foundation and knowledge base with a decade of consulting for EY in Rome, Italy from 2000–2010. She then went on to create and run the Risk Management Department within a major Italian infrastructure company from 2010- 2015, where she was in charge of developing the risk framework, methodologies, processes, procedures, and RM tools. In 2015, Jennifer moved to Washington, D.C. as Vice President of Multilateral Relations and Risk Management (North America).
She is fluent in English and Italian and is proficient in both French and Spanish. She is a proud mother of two and enjoys rowing, running, music and travel.
English
Arabic
French
Spanish