Dansira Dembele has been selected for the prestigious Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders.
This White House sponsored initiative includes participation in an intensive program at the University of Illinois, Urbana – Champaign for four weeks and culminates in a three-day Presidential Summit featuring a town hall with President Obama in Washington, D.C.
Dansira is a Malian journalist and has served with several newspapers where issues related to the environment have always been her passion.
Since February 2015, Dansira has been responsible for communication and public relations in the Community Initiatives for Strengthening Resilience to Climate Extremes project (RIC4REC) at the IRD/Blumont Mali office. This project is funded by the British Department for International Development (DFID) in the vast BRACED program that aims to build the resilience of vulnerable people to climate change in the Sahel and Asia. In the RIC4REC project Dansira is in charge of the preparation and the production of radio programs for rural communities to raise awareness of climate change. She also designs radio broadcasts on the practice of smart agriculture that are designed to help small farmers to get climate information related to their livelihoods.
In addition to these activities, Dansira is a founding member of an association called A2D (Africa Sustainable Development) which proposes projects for sustainable development in West Africa, such as the efficient use of domestic waste. A2D also provides trainings helping (re)place the citizens of Mali and Senegal in the centers of environmental concerns in order to make them aware of ecological, climatic and environmental risks.
