Africa Table - The African Advocacy Network
Join the Center for African Studies for our weekly lunchtime lecture series.
Speaker: Adoubou Traore, Co-Director & DOJ Accredited Representative, African Advocacy Network
Adoubou Traore is a native of the Ivory Coast and the former Executive Director of African Immigrant and Refugee Resource Center (AIRRC) in San Francisco. He currently serves as Co-Director and DOJ Accredited Representative of the African Advocacy Network (AAN), described below.
Adoubou is a former recipient of the British Council Scholarship in 1990 and the Fulbright Scholarship in 2000-2002. He speaks French, English, Spanish, Senufo, and Bambara. He obtained a Masters of Arts in English from San Francisco State University (SFSU) in 2002. Adoubou supervises AAN program staff by providing direction, input and feedback, communicates with clients and other stakeholders to gain community support for the program and to solicit input to improve the program, liaises with other managers to ensure the effective and efficient program delivery, and coordinates the delivery of services among different program activities to increase effectiveness and efficiency. In addition to his management duties, Adoubou assist clients with legal consultation, legal counseling and legal processing. Adoubou also does document translation and interpretation in asylum office.
About the African Advocacy Network (AAN)
AAN is a San Francisco-based nonprofit founded in 2009 to serve the growing Diaspora of African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants. AAN provides immigration legal services, case management, and social integration services based on a unique Cultural Brokering model. AAN couples these programs with experienced and trained linguistic capacity in more than ten languages that span the African continent such as Amharic, Tigrinya, and Arabic to French, Wolof, Berber, Sonufu, and more. Since 2009, AAN has been fiscally sponsored by Dolores Street Community Services (DSCS). After 7 years of building capacity and internal infrastructure, in mid-2016 AAN embarked in the process of becoming an independent organization. The transition will be completed by late 2017.
AAN’s mission is to make the African Advocacy Network an outstanding social and immigration legal service provider for African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants through the delivery of quality services by Department of Justice (DOJ) Accredited staff in a culturally and linguistically- supportive environment. At the community level AAN aims to tap into the strength and resilience of African and Afro-Caribbean immigrants and refugees in the Bay area and equip them with the tools they need to lead independent, productive, and dignified lives.