Meet Maimouna Ndiaye: Founder of Africa Children’s Foundation

By: Leila Olukoga, SemegaChange Inc.

 Founder of Africa Children’s Foundation has found a way to combine her interests in the health sector and give back to her community through international health initiative.

In 2018, Maimouna Ndiaye was granted the opportunity to study abroad in her home country, Senegal, to provide health support for underprivileged children. During this internship, Ndiaye provided the children with vaccination protocols and public health campaigns to enhance health initiatives in the area. 

Since then, Ndiaye’s interest in both the public health sector and supporting West African health initiatives has since taken off. 

“I was originally on the medical track, so I came back from that internship, and I switched over to public health because I realized I'm more into prevention rather than the cure after it happened,” Ndiaye said. “So that's what made me look into public health. Then when I got into my master's program, that's when [I realized] I love epidemiology.”

Raised in Harlem, New York, Ndiaye is a trained epidemiologist with her primary focus on drug safety in the pharmaceutical industry. Ndiaye said that her role as an epidemiologist sparked from the lack of West African and black representation in the field. 

“I did not see anyone who looked like me who was epidemiologist,” Ndiaye said. “I didn't even know what an epidemiologist was until I came back [from my internship] because I was just so fascinated with public health. I didn't have anyone who looked like me who was epidemiologist until I moved to D.C.”

From then on, Ndiaye cemented her health-based interests both in the Washington D.C. and West African regions through her non-profit organization, Africa Children’s Foundation (ACF).

“[ACF] focuses on the social determinants of health, and then we focus on economic stability, access to healthcare, education and gender equity,” Ndiaye said. “We use those focus areas to see if there's any correlations with the health outcomes that affect children and women in West African countries.”

ACF has made a plethora of accomplishments such as making access to education and health resources more available for children in Senegal and neighboring West African countries such as the Gambia. ACF has been in operation since 2018 and has since supported hundreds of women, children, and families to have better access and resources to live more comfortably. 

Ndiaye said that her Senegalese identity has enabled her to provide pivotal and effective work to West African populations. 

“I wanted to do something because I know these people more than anyone because I'm African, so I know the struggles that children and women face,” Ndiaye said. “I think [my identity is] very important, because when we talk about Africa, it's always like we're trying to save them. But there are people in these countries that don't need to be saved. For ACF, we actually go into rural communities where [the help is] actually needed.” 

Ndiaye will be continuing her work in the health sector as well as West Africa by beginning her Doctor of Public Health program this fall. Ndiaye said that she hopes her work within the health sector of West Africa will continue to grow, reaching populations across the continent. 

“My biggest goal is to build a Women and Children's Clinic in Senegal,” Ndiaye said. “That is my biggest goal and it's going to be under ACF to spread, keep doing the work that we're doing, grow our team, grow our program, and reach as many people as possible around West Africa. [And] my biggest goal as long as I'm on this earth, is to reach every single African country.”