HIGHLIGHT:  Du Beau Monde au WARC/Local Eminent Persons Invited for Lunch at WARC

It all started with Professor Ibrahima Thioub and his colleague and friend, the Director of WARC, Professor Ousmane Sene, reflecting on the need to regularly meet and exchange with young leaders and sporting stars from the underprivileged neighborhoods surrounding Dakar to help them better shoulder their leadership positions and be role models and sources of hope and inspiration to those thousands of other youths desperate to pull themselves out of the nets of poverty (some of them not thinking twice to board dangerous boats for the perilous routes of uncontrolled migration).

And then, the Director started thinking of who to contact to extend the list of resource persons to be involved in that important conversation. From one or three eminent friends of WARC, the list grew to a dozen names including:

• Professor Thioub, Historian, former Rector of UCAD
• Kalidou Kassé, world-class painter
• Professor Penda Mbow, Historian at UCAD and adviser to the Senegalese President
• Dr Elhadji Malick Ndiaye, Curator, Museum Theodore Monod
• Ismael Lo, world-class star singer and musician
• Professor Hamady Bocoum, Curator of the Museum of Black Civilizations
• Dr Amy Sarr-Fall: lady influencer and Director General of the monthly “Intelligences Magazine” publication
• Mr Elhadj Hamidou Kassé, Cultural adviser to the Senegalese President
• Mrs Rose Custis, CAO and acting DCM at the US Embassy

The list of prominent friends of WARC was far from complete as the Director realized, but it had to be stopped with those names for convenience sake and healthy social distancing. And these fine intellects reported to WARC on Thursday July 8^th to partake of a nice lunch and enjoy a few cups of senegalese tea (attaya) in a relax, friendly and very casual atmosphere. The event was also attended by Professor Benjamin Suarez from the University of Florida, Gainesville, who came for a friendly visit to the WARC Director and Dr Mamadou Bodian, the current Coordinator for the Fulbrighters’ support services, a project entrusted to WARC by the Institute of International Education (IIE) and the US State Department, which will start operating as of July-August 2021.