Coumba Touré
Director
Writer, producer, program designer and implementer, resource mobilizer, and evaluation expert. She brings over 30 years of diverse and in-depth experience in education, youth development, women’s empowerment for social justice, philanthropy, and the arts in Africa and around the world. She is fluent in English, French, Bambara, and Wolof.
Areas of expertise
- • Design, implementation, and management of programs focused on social and economic justice
- • Monitoring and evaluation of projects and social enterprises
- • Development of training modules and tools for social justice and language learning
- • Organization, facilitation, and moderation of seminars and workshops on social justice
- • Advocacy process design and facilitation
- • Community mobilization
- • Action research
- • Cultural organization and programming
• Resource mobilization
Biography
Born and raised between Mali and Senegal, Coumba Touré is a children’s book author and storyteller. She publishes stories for children and organizes artistic events that nurture children’s imagination and spirit through Kumbati, her production house, and the Falia Association, a collective of educators and artists. She also designs popular education programs focused on women and children.
Coumba is Chair of the Board of Trustees of TrustAfrica Foundation and ACI Baobab. She served as Coordinator of Africans Rising for Justice, Peace and Dignity from 2018 to 2022. She is the Director of Kuumbati.
She has extensive experience in facilitating self-expression, engaging young people, and designing, implementing, and evaluating training programs that promote human rights and joy, particularly for women. She has worked with organizations such as the Institute for Popular Education in Mali, the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement in Selma, Alabama, and Youth for Environmental Sanity in Santa Cruz, California.
Coumba is a member of the African Feminist Forum and the Per Ankh collective. She has served on the board of the Urgent Action Fund for Women in Africa.
Coumba is a loving mother, sister, and daughter.
Professional Experience
Coumba Touré is an African woman, storyteller, and pioneer with more than 25 years of experience in the fight against racism in the United States. She has used popular education, the arts, and advocacy to advance feminism, Pan-Africanism, philanthropy, and social justice around the world.
She coordinated the development of *Africans Rising*, the Pan-African solidarity movement for unity, justice, peace, and dignity. Her responsibilities included vision and program development, resource mobilization, staff and movement membership recruitment and management, strategic partnership building, and supporting feminist and Pan-African movements as well as artists.
For 10 years, from 2007 to 2017, she served as the representative of Ashoka Sahel. She recruited, managed, supported, monitored, and evaluated social entrepreneurs, changemakers, and innovators working for social change across different countries, primarily in West Africa, but also throughout Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the United States, in diverse fields including education, agriculture, and human rights.
She designed new programs in Africa to advance the vision of *“Everyone a Changemaker.”* She was also responsible for fundraising and team leadership. She coordinated the *Ashoka Africa Empathy* initiative, which aimed to transform education systems across Africa.
From 2000 to 2007, she worked as an independent consultant for nonprofit organizations. She served as a trainer, facilitator, and evaluator, and designed programs on education, leadership, gender, health, and sexual and reproductive rights.
Her clients and partner organizations included, among others, the *Global Fund for Children, Kit Royal Institute, TrustAfrica Foundation, Washington and Lee University, Grantmakers Without Borders,* and the *Funders Network on Trade and Globalization*.
Staff
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Marie Héléne Ndiaye
Organizer of the Invisible Giants
