October 20, 2005

GENEVA – He remembers the first assignment with his new employer in 1974 – transporting materials for the planting of trees to prevent the desert advancing toward Mauritania's capital Nouakchott. Aged 25 years, with a young family, he had joined a newly established Christian organization in the Islamic Republic of Mauritania.

He was more familiar with the work of the Mauritania Red Crescent Society, which he later learned, worked closely with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) to set up irrigation systems, distribute seedlings, and provide health services outside Nouakchott. The northwest African country is predominantly desert, and soil erosion aggravated by drought further contributes to desertification.

Today, Mr Amadou N'Diaye, 56, looks back at more than 30 years of service with the LWF Department for World Service (DWS) with "a great sense of job satisfaction and respect for an organization that not only changed his own life but that of thousands of community members throughout Mauritania." His tasks have changed though, from truck driver ferrying products to field outposts to chauffeuring the DWS program director and country representative. N'Diaye shared his experiences in an interview for Lutheran World Information (LWI) during a recent visit to the LWF Geneva secretariat.

Inter-Religious Understanding and Practice

N'Diaye says he feels privileged to have met people from all over the world, mostly visitors to DWS Mauritania projects, and he cites an experience repeated with his different "bosses," all of whom have been non-Muslim. Whenever on duty travel, he could stop the car at the roadside and say his prayers at 2:30 p.m., 5 p.m., or 7 p.m. "without ever worrying that the boss was looking at his/her watch." Less concerned with the theological terminology describing such action, he treasures it as "a living expression of inter-religious understanding and practice."

LWF work in Mauritania focuses on the cross-cutting issues of HIV/AIDS, gender equality, and promotion of human rights. Projects on poverty reduction, social development, environmental protection and afforestation include a perspective on these key issues.

The father of five children aged between 12 and 24, N'Diaye had never imagined visiting the LWF Geneva secretariat, which has been his first trip to Europe. But, he says, over the years he has gained much more, "I have experience and knowledge that will benefit future generations."

A Community School, Clinic and Well

For the past 13 years, N'Diaye has been chairperson of the Dioudé Djeri community, some 400 kilometers south of Nouakchott. Under his leadership in the early 1990s, community members pooled resources for the construction of much-needed additional classrooms in the village. More recently, they have built a small clinic and water reservoir.

N'Diaye was invited to Geneva by LWF General Secretary, Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, who had visited Mauritania several times before and more recently for the DWS field program's 30th anniversary celebrations in February 2005. During the annual LWF Week of Meetings for Geneva secretariat staff and DWS program directors, October 10-13, Noko publicly acknowledged N'Diaye's dedicated service and that of the nearly 6,000 other staff in the field "who donate their expertise and time." In turn, Mr Robert Granke, DWS director, expressed his personal and the department's trust in N'Diaye, and in all the other dedicated field staff worldwide.

DWS is the LWF's internationally recognized humanitarian and development agency, working with marginalized and disadvantaged communities. Through field operations in 37 countries in Africa,Asia, Europe, South and Central America, DWS reaches out to people in need, irrespective of ethnicity, gender, religion, nationality or political conviction.

Lutheran World Information