The 11th Hour Project is devastated by the sudden loss of our dear colleague, partner, and friend, Ousmane Aminata Bangoura, Coordinator of the local Guinean NGO, Association pour le Développement Rural et l’Entraide Mutuelle de Guinée (ADREMGUI). He was born in 1980, and passed away on May 16, 2020 after a long standing illness, which was further complicated by his inability to travel outside of the country for necessary medical follow-up during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

No words can capture the heaviness of this loss.

Ousmane Aminata Bangoura was the founder and Coordinator of ADREMGUI. He was dedicated to the continuous search for ways to uplift communities in his native country of Guinea and to support them in pursuing community-centered and locally-led development. He worked in many parts of the country, but especially in areas where industrial mining is causing devastating impacts on the environment, large-scale land dispossession, and the destruction of peoples’ livelihoods. 

Ousmane’s power as a human rights advocate came from his humility, his remarkably thoughtful reflections no matter the circumstances, his unequivocal approach to local empowerment, and his thirst for learning, knowledge and continuous improvement. He also had a tremendous ability to use silence to his advantage. 

He reached beyond traditional approaches to human rights work, building grassroots leadership through community liaisons and by helping communities to set up women-led village savings and loans clubs (Groupements Villageois d’Epargne et de Crédit, or GVEC) at the local level. GVEC empower women in rural areas to build basic safety nets that help meet their everyday needs – whether school fees, health care or food. Serving also as an important stepping stone, the GVEC enable women’s broader engagement in advocacy to protect their lands, creating space for women to discuss ways to assert their rights and to participate in community-level decision-making. Ousmane’s vision, and ADREMGUI’s approach to GVEC, embodied the principles of decentralized decision-making and economic agency that are essential to women’s empowerment and participation in their communities. 

Ousmane valued all people equally and believed in accountability. This was tangible in his organisational leadership as well, nurturing and mentoring his young dynamic team, while at the same time assembling an active Board of Directors and engaging them regularly on major decisions. He collaborated meaningfully in a number of civil society initiatives including in a coalition of Guinean organizations dedicated to the protection of communities impacted by mining. Most recently, he also began mentoring a young and emergent women-led NGO Créativité et Développement (C-DEV) on the GVEC model, and exploring ways for C-DEV secure women’s access and rights to land and natural resources. 

When we first met Ousmane, we were struck by his ability to bring wisdom to any topic, to always view it through the lens of what is just. It felt as though the world was “righter” because he was in it. Ousmane’s passing is a devastating loss to the family he leaves behind — including his four children — his community and the communities he served, his ADREMGUI colleagues, his collaborators, and for Guinea as a whole.

We are all better for having known him. 

We are committed to living his values and pursuing the justice he sought. 

May he rest in power and in peace.