Abdulai Bah - WMW Executive Director, Co-Founder and Steering Committee

Abdulai Bah is a New York City–based storyteller, journalist, and educator with more than 15 years of experience. His work has been featured on PRI, ABC Radio National in Australia, The Nation, Pacifica Radio, PBS NewsHour, WNYC, Al Jazeera, and The New York Times’ documentary series The Weekly.

He began his career reporting on communities that are often overlooked. In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, he traveled to the Gulf Coast to document how residents in New Orleans and Gulfport, Mississippi, were rebuilding their lives. He later worked in Liberia, where he helped train women who survived the civil war to launch a community radio station in Monrovia, giving them the tools to tell their own stories. While there, he also reported on deportees from the United States detained by the Liberian government.

Back in New York, he produced a worker-led radio program on WBAI, where domestic workers, street vendors, taxi drivers, and construction workers shared their experiences after receiving basic radio training through his program.

His work has also been presented through collaborative media projects at institutions such as MIT, IDEO New York, and the White House Office of Science and Technology.

In recent years, Bah has focused more on community-based work. He is involved with the US-African Children’s Fellowship, a Brooklyn-based nonprofit supporting education initiatives across Africa. He also co-founded an African mutual aid network in New York City, where he has helped newly arrived asylum seekers navigate housing, legal processes, and basic services.

He is currently developing a new initiative to organize and support taxi drivers and food delivery workers across the city, building on the same approach that has shaped his work from the beginning: storytelling, trust, and community leadership.

Souleymane Barry - Director of Member Services & Office Manager

Souleymane Barry was born and raised in Guinea, where he gained over five years of experience in the construction industry, primarily supervising projects and managing on-site work.

He arrived in New York City in 2023 and connected with WMW while navigating his own transition. After receiving support, he chose to stay involved and began assisting other newly arrived migrants going through similar challenges. Drawing on his own experience, he quickly became a trusted and reliable presence within the community.

With his sharp eye for detail and deep commitment to mutual aid, Souleymane stepped up as office manager. Now he keeps daily operations running smoothly, coordinating resources and making sure members get the help they need.

He plans to continue building his career in construction and is working toward obtaining the certifications needed to advance in the field.

Allen Blitz - Member WMW Steering Committee

Allen Blitz was born in the Bronx to a father from Austria-Hungary and a mother whose parents emigrated from Lithuania. He retired in 2014 after a 30-year career in the nonprofit affordable housing sector, working with three citywide organizations: Neighborhood Housing Services, the Community Services Society, and the Urban Assistance Homesteading Board. His professional expertise includes low-income real estate finance as well as construction and project management.

He is currently a member of the Community Loan Fund of Habitat for Humanity of New York and Westchester. Earlier in his career, he worked as a labor organizer in North Carolina and Virginia and served as a program director at the Colony House–South Brooklyn Settlement House Senior Center.

Allen holds a Master’s degree in Sociology from Long Island University and a B.A. from the City College of New York. He also had the unique opportunity to serve as company manager for the Afro-American Traditional Jazz Dance Theater, including participating in a 1969 U.S. State Department tour of Africa.

He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and is the father of two adult daughters and grandfather to a nine-year-old grandson.

Gregory Cohen - Organizational Advisor

Gregory Cohen brings 40 years of nonprofit management experience to WMW's parent organization, Philanthropy Leaders, which is the 12th nonprofit he has helped to create. In retirement, Greg has supported amputee families and education programs in Sierra Leone, including developing an adult learning center with USACF. He has strengthened local and global organizations by building organizational capacity through fundraising training, engaging boards, elevating public awareness, and aligning mission with program outcomes, particularly for 17 years, as Associate Director at Cause Effective.  He was the founder of Comprehensive Youth Development (CYD), a nonprofit associated with Manhattan Comprehensive Night & Day High School. CYD supports to 800 students a year, using over 100 volunteers. His work at CYD was the focus of a front page story in the New York Times and a special edition of PBS' NOW With Bill Moyers.

Previously, Greg ran the housing development program at the New York Urban Coalition for 13 years, where he created over 270 units of  housing financed by over $27 million.  These projects included permanent housing for survivors of domestic violence and CATCH a nonprofit which converts foreclosed apartments into tenant cooperatives.

Greg is a certified trainer in nonprofit ethics by the Institute for Global Ethics.  He also advised the Institute on their plan to expand to schools nationwide.   He has been a Guest Instructor on "Fundraising For New Nonprofit Ventures" at NYU’s Wagner School and the New School.  He served on the board of Nonprofit New York (NPCC) for 20 years and was a participant in Coro's Leadership NY II. He holds a BA from Union College. He lives with his wife, Viviane Arzoumanian, and, to his delight, in the same house as the families of his two adult daughters and his grandchild in Brooklyn.