CODATU volunteers: can we talk about our guardian angels?

At CODATU, we recognise the vital importance of volunteers in the life of our association. However, we realised that we had not sufficiently highlighted their talent, their loyalty and their invaluable commitment.

Without being able to name them all, here is a glimpse of some of our tireless volunteers. Some of them are experts in areas of expertise that CODATU has not yet explored, such as marketing, teleticketing, communications or the sociology of mobility. This is the case of Maimouna Ndong Etroit, a political strategy consultant who represents us in Dakar, and Marie Hélène Chapel, former marketing director of Grenoble’s urban network, who joined us 3 years ago to help prepare Sustainable Mobility and Climate Week 2022 in Dakar and the new website. Siméone Pondi, our volunteer from Cameroon, also helps Salima and Marie Hélène with their communications work.

Other volunteers are influential figures in politics, science, academia or the media. They support our projects and our advocacy and strategic positions. They include Christian Philip, former Chairman of Sytral, who takes international political relations to the highest level, François Xavier Perin, former Deputy Managing Director of Transdev, Thibault de Lambert, our General Secretary and former Managing Director of RATP International, Ali Huzayyin, who has been contributing to our scientific activities for 4 decades from Cairo University, Armand Beouinde, former Mayor of Ouagadougou, and not forgetting our valiant Chairman, François Durovray!

We can’t talk about the volunteers without mentioning Raymond Deschamps, former Director General of Services at Sytral, who, with rigour and kindness, supports our Deputy General Manager in managing CODATU’s finances, and provides mentoring on governance to leaders of cities in the South. Dominique Breuil, mayor of his home town in the west of France, is a teacher and specialist in electromobility, and is the driving force behind our scientific community. And finally,  Bruno Loustalet, Associate Researcher at the EVS-RIVES laboratory at ENTPE, who supervises several CODATU working groups, Bruno Jansem, who was Director of Mobility and Transport at the Strasbourg Urban Community, Xavier Crépin, a lecturer in the ISUR Master’s programme at Sciences-Po Rennes, Jean-Charles Crochet, our representative in Washington after a career at the World Bank, Herrie Schalekamp, Researcher and Consultant in the field of urban public transport in sub-Saharan Africa, specialist in paratransit, Philippe Bossuet, specialist in urban travel plans after a career with SYTRAL, and Ali Saïdi, Project Director at 2B2P Conseil, specialist in ticketing and information systems.

We couldn’t possibly mention them all in this short post, because there are nearly thirty of them who share their skills, energy and good humour with the CODATU team.

We would like to express our gratitude to our volunteers, our guardian angels, who make an exceptional contribution to CODATU’s mission and who deserve to be highlighted for their dedication and generosity. Thank you all for your invaluable collaboration and unfailing commitment!