Ndeye Marie Diédhiou, a widow, is a teacher with 25 years of teaching experience. She joined youth movements as a teenager.
In the professional sphere, she became a trade unionist in private Catholic education and joined the women’s movements. “I am a member, practically of all the women’s organizations that exist in Casamance, most of them at least. But, an advantage or disadvantage, I’ve never got involved in politics.” According to her, it is the profile that made her the ideal candidate to lead the platform that brought together organizations of all different persuasions.
She is the coordinator of the Women’s Platform for Peace in Casamance. She defines herself as the servant of women in Casamance.

Traditionally, Casamance women have the right to intervene in the prevention and management of conflict between villages and communities. In their families, they regulate tensions. Women are important in conflict resolution because they make the decision with men to go to war. It was in the 1990s, when they realized that their children and themselves were the main victims, that they used another approach in their activities.
The Women’s Platform for Peace in Casamance was created in 2010 at the initiative of two organizations that were active in the search for peace. In order to assess women’s activities in this search, they convened all the women’s organizations of Casamance. This think tank had the idea of forming an organization that brought together 14 women’s umbrella organizations with 25,000 members, to work on the review of Security Council Resolution 1325, thus emphasizing the importance of women’s full participation in peacekeeping.
The platform’s activities included assistance to victims of armed conflict,

the organization of meetings and dialogue with various stakeholders, campaigns for the signature of petition booklets asking for the involvement of local populations in the quest for peace.
In 2019, the women met with four of the five presidential candidates. They also conducted public consultations at the level of the nine departments of Casamance, which enabled them to identify their concerns according to their residential areas. After these consultations and meetings with other organizational observers of the crisis, they drew up an official report for the President of the Republic they have yet to meet. They maintain hope of making sustainable peace.
“This lull we have experienced for years is the right time – It is necessary to seize this opportunity to start negotiations”.