Our Team

Washington West African Center

Www.wawac.org 

WAWAC is a statewide agency that connects West Africans in Washington with local resources, bridges the gap between us and the wider community, and culturally socializes West African children in a value-driven way.WAWAC is the 211 for the West Africans in the state where if they need anything, they come to us, if we don’t have it, we go find it. 

Since 2017, WAWAC under the leadership of Pa Ousman Joof has been providing services that connect West Africans with local resources and bridge the gap between us and the wider community. We provide wrapped around services for every age group in our community: grandma’s monthly hangout; adult learning classes; annual back-to-school get-together; advocacy on several different topics; Sounds of Africa festival; immigration advocacy; employment support; language interpretation/translation services etc. The recent pandemic only amplified the divide we were trying to forge. Since COVID-19 the demand for our services has quadrupled. We started providing relevant new services such as distributing facemasks, hand sanitizers, gloves, and other COVID-19 prevention and protection gear. We also started providing weekly grocery assistance, medical and utility bill payment, and other types of support based on individual needs. We recently started an after-school program and a monthly movie night for the kids in our community. This provides a platform for kids to build relationships and enhance their culturally appropriate social skills by engaging in creative fun art projects. Since the beginning of Summer 2022, we have transformed this afterschool program into an 8-week summer camp. WAWAC has organized and participated in over 30 different vaccine clinics leading to over 5000 West Africans in Washington state being vaccinated.