Updated: March 29, 2021 at 10:31 a.m.
Year: Junior
Hometown: Burkina Faso, West Africa
Major: International Business and International Affairs
Student organizations/activities: GW Club Soccer, School of Business’ Dean’s Council for Multicultural Recruitment, African Student Association
SA experience: Member of SA diversity and inclusion assembly
Favorite quarantine activity: Running by the monuments in D.C.
First place you will go after the pandemic is no longer a concern: D.C. United soccer game
Show you are currently binge-watching: “Old Boys”
Favorite restaurant in the District: Founding Farmers
Favorite outdoor activity: Coaching soccer for elementary school kids with the organization I volunteer for
Favorite place in the world: Burkina Faso
Who is your role model: Thomas Sankara, the former president of Burkina Faso
Proudest GW moment: Meeting Christine Lagarde, the president of the European Central Bank at GeorgeTalksBusiness
Something you can’t live without: Water
What would your walk-up song be: “Tu seras élevé” by DJ Kerozan
Christian Zidouemba is “always smiling.”
He said his friendly disposition and talent for connecting with people will help him build relationships with students across campus if elected as SA president. He said his experiences attending GW as both an international and first-generation student make him a “compassionate” leader necessary for the student body.
“I want to become the next SA leader so that I can enact change for our campus because so much change is needed, but in order to do that, we need to have people who have the passion, the drive and the compassion to understand the struggles for every day students at GW,” he said.
Zidouemba announced his campaign for SA president earlier this month with plans to increase professional development opportunities through an alumni mentorship program and advocate for marginalized students with more SA leadership roles.
If elected, he said he would also create a director of student-athletes position to focus on communicating with the athletic community and advertise athletic events to students.
He said he created a platform that aims to foster a “community-oriented student experience” on campus.
“There is a gap between the Student Association and regular students,” he said. “If you ask any person on campus, ‘Who is currently serving in the SA?’ they probably won’t know because they are not engaged, and I think that one thing we can do to address that is by establishing a vice presidential office of housing and [director of] athletics to better reach students and represent their needs.”
He said his previous experiences working at the Lerner Health and Wellness Center and in the Office of Undergraduate Admissions as a student orientation leader have allowed him to forge “strong” connections with administrators and prepare him for student advocacy.
“The SA has been seen for far too long as a bureaucratic place where student leaders take themselves way too seriously and don’t look to amplify the voices of students on campus, whether it’s international students, the Asian community or first-generation students,” he said. “I’m someone who can bridge that gap between those who are left out and GW campus administrators.”
He said he would work with officials to provide a U-Pass Metro card to help students afford traveling off campus.
“When we come back from COVID-19, we need to have this so that students can access Foggy Bottom and experience what GW has to offer, because that’s really what makes the school such a good place is the wider Foggy Bottom community that we are a part of,” he said.
This post has been updated to correct the following:
A previous version of this post said Zidouemba’s proudest GW moment was meeting the managing editor of the International Monetary Fund. His proudest moment was meeting the president of the European Central Bank. We regret this error.
