Tostan
Encyclopedia
Tostan is a US-registered 501(c)(3) international nongovernmental organization with operations in over 500 communities in Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

, Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

, Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....

, The Gambia
The Gambia
The Republic of The Gambia, commonly referred to as The Gambia, or Gambia , is a country in West Africa. Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, surrounded by Senegal except for a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in the west....

, Mauritania
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...

, Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

, and Djibouti
Djibouti
Djibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti , is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast. The remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east...

. Tostan’s mission is “to empower African communities to bring about sustainable development and positive social transformation based on respect for human rights.” It employs approximately 370 people, and works in mostly rural regions to promote literacy and increase community engagement in projects to promote health and hygiene, child welfare, human rights and democracy, the environment, and economic development.

In 1997, women who had participated in Tostan’s classes in the village of Malicounda Bambara
Malicounda Bambara
Malicounda Bambara is a village in the M'bour Department of the Thiès Region in western Senegal, located approximately 85 km from the Senegalese capital of Dakar. Founded in 1902 by migrants from neighboring Mali in search of arable land, today the village counts ethnic bambaras, sarakolés,...

, Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

 decided to apply what they had learned in the program about health and human rights and declare an end to female genital mutilation (FGM). The women decided to stop this practice in order to protect the human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 and health of their daughters. On July 31, 1997, these villagers gathered journalists to announce their decision—a first in the history of Senegal.

Other villages reacted with hostility, but a local imam named Demba Diawara explained that such social change could never be achieved in one village alone. Where FGC is practiced as a tradition, it is required for a girl to marry into another family. So ending the practice requires agreement among groups whose children marry one another.

Diawara therefore decided to walk from village to village to raise awareness about the dangers of FGC in the surrounding communities. On February 14, 1998, 13 neighboring villages declared their decision to join the Malicounda Bambara pledge.

Since then, Tostan’s approach has encouraged over 2,600 villages in Senegal (over one half of the estimated 5,000 Senegalese villages that practice FGC) to abandon both cutting and another harmful practice with which it is often associated: child/forced marriage. The movement has spread to 298 villages in Guinea and 20 in Burkina Faso.

Tostan is the winner of the 2007 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize
Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is an American non-profit charitable foundation, established in 1944 by hotel entrepreneur Conrad N. Hilton. It remained relatively small until his death on January 3, 1979 when it was named the principal beneficiary of his estate...

 for its “significant contributions to the alleviation of human suffering.”

History

The origins of Tostan can be traced to 1974, when an American student named Molly Melching
Molly Melching
Molly Melching is the founder and executive director of Tostan , a Non-Governmental Organization whose mission it is to empower African communities for sustainable development and social transformation in the respect of human rights...

 came to Senegal as an exchange student. After completing her studies, Melching stayed to work as a Peace Corps
Peace Corps
The Peace Corps is an American volunteer program run by the United States Government, as well as a government agency of the same name. The mission of the Peace Corps includes three goals: providing technical assistance, helping people outside the United States to understand US culture, and helping...

 Volunteer in Dakar
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...

, creating the first radio program for children in African languages. Her work began to take her to rural villages outside of Thiès
Thiès
Thiès is the third largest city in Senegal with a population officially estimated at 320,000 in 2005. It lies 60 km east of Dakar on the N2 road and at the junction of railway lines to Dakar, Bamako and St-Louis...

, where she observed that many development efforts were not addressing the needs and realities of the communities.

Relying on community feedback, Melching and a team of Senegalese cultural specialists developed a new type of educational program, one that engaged communities in the process by working in their own language and using traditional methods of learning, such as dialogue, theater, dance, etc. Their efforts grew throughout the 1980s. Melching founded Tostan in 1991 to continue this work.

Tostan’s international headquarters is located in the capital of Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

, Dakar
Dakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...

. Tostan’s US office is located in Washington, DC. Tostan maintains national offices Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...

, Guinea
Guinea
Guinea , officially the Republic of Guinea , is a country in West Africa. Formerly known as French Guinea , it is today sometimes called Guinea-Conakry to distinguish it from its neighbour Guinea-Bissau. Guinea is divided into eight administrative regions and subdivided into thirty-three prefectures...

, Guinea-Bissau
Guinea-Bissau
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west....

, The Gambia
The Gambia
The Republic of The Gambia, commonly referred to as The Gambia, or Gambia , is a country in West Africa. Gambia is the smallest country on mainland Africa, surrounded by Senegal except for a short coastline on the Atlantic Ocean in the west....

, Mauritania
Mauritania
Mauritania is a country in the Maghreb and West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean in the west, by Western Sahara in the north, by Algeria in the northeast, by Mali in the east and southeast, and by Senegal in the southwest...

, Djibouti
Djibouti
Djibouti , officially the Republic of Djibouti , is a country in the Horn of Africa. It is bordered by Eritrea in the north, Ethiopia in the west and south, and Somalia in the southeast. The remainder of the border is formed by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden at the east...

 and Hargeisa
Hargeisa
Hargeisa is a city in the northwestern Woqooyi Galbeed region of Somalia. With a population of approximately 2 million residents, it is the second largest city in the country. Hargeisa is the capital of Somaliland, a self-declared republic that is internationally recognized as an autonomous region...

, Somalia
Somalia
Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

.

The Community Empowerment Program (CEP)

The Community Empowerment Program (CEP) is a human rights-based curriculum that provides participants with a strong foundation of knowledge and skills to improve their lives and generate solutions to community problems. The program includes modules on democracy, human rights, problem solving, hygiene, health, literacy, and management skills. Tostan trains local women and men to facilitate in the local languages the 30-month program. A specially designed CEP for youth promotes a multigenerational approach to development and fosters adolescent leadership. Tostan centers are established in each community to provide the physical environment necessary for dialogue, exchange, and development.

Program Approach

The Community Empowerment Program is
Holistic

It contributes to the overall development of participants as they work with their community in designing, carrying out, and sustaining community-led activities.


Learner-centered and Participatory

Tostan’s program actively engages adolescent and adult learners in deciding goals for their future and moving forward in partnerships with others to achieve those goals. Tostan teaches its participants the knowledge and practical skills necessary to become self sufficient and productive. Teaching methods consist of interactive exercises, such as small-group work, case studies, and action-research projects. These methods draw on modern and traditional African oral techniques, including theater, storytelling, dance, artwork, song, debate, and the sharing of personal experience.


Respectful and Inclusive

Tostan works with learners, listening carefully to their experiences and ideas. It also listens to and works closely with religious and village leaders, incorporating their ideas into the program. The program encourages dialogue and consensus among members of all groups: men and women, elders and youth, different social classes, ethnic groups, castes, and religions.


Future-Oriented

At the beginning of the program, participants identify goals for the future of their community. The knowledge gained in class sessions helps them to achieve their goals in an organized manner. Instead of focusing on what is lacking or making value judgments, Tostan asks participants to think about existing community resources and how to build on them.


Responsive

Tostan uses the feedback it receives from communities and participants to regularly update and revise its programs. The organization carries out systematic evaluations and helps external reviewers carry out their evaluations.


Sustainable

Tostan believes that the collective changes made by villagers must be self sustaining. As a result, Tostan helps establish democratically chosen Community Management Committees that continue community-led development efforts after the education program ends. Trained by Tostan, these committees also use participatory decision-making methods.

Female genital mutilation in Senegal

Female genital mutilation (FGM) has existed in Senegal for approximately 2,000 years. Though not all ethnic groups practice FGM (the Wolof
Wolof language
Wolof is a language spoken in Senegal, The Gambia, and Mauritania, and is the native language of the Wolof people. Like the neighbouring languages Serer and Fula, it belongs to the Atlantic branch of the Niger–Congo language family...

, for example, do not), many do, and the practice is mandatory for girls in order to marry. In general, FGM is performed on young girls between the age of two and five. Type II is the most common type of FGM in Senegal though Type I is also performed (see Female genital mutilation#Classification). Sealing, the most severe type of FGM, does occur sporadically in Senegal. In 1997 UNICEF estimated that there were approximately 5,000 villages in Senegal that were practicing FGM. As of 2011, 4,183 of the practicing villages have publicly abandoned it. The government of Senegal adopted Tostan's FGM model and works with Tostan to end FGM by 2015.

As Gerry Mackie, a University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...

 researcher analogized in a 1996 American Sociological Review
American Sociological Review
The American Sociological Review is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed academic journal covering all aspects of sociology, including new theoretical developments, results of research that advance the understanding of fundamental social processes, and methodological innovations. It is published by SAGE...

 article, FGM, like the practice of foot-binding in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

, would end very quickly once people began ending the practice collectively in order to preserve a woman’s ability to marry within their ethnic group.

Starting in 1997 participants in the Tostan education modules have prepared and recited public declarations promising to abandon FGM. It has persisted in Africa in large part due to the inability of a girl to marry if she had not been cut. In order to realistically end the practice, groups of villages of the same ethnicity all agree to abandon the practice, thereby supplying a group of people who can intermarry without the need to undergo FGM.

Partners and recognition

Tostan's donors include UNICEF, UNFPA, the American Jewish World Service
American Jewish World Service
American Jewish World Service is a nonprofit international development organization, founded in 1985, which supports community-based organizations in 35 countries in the developing world and works to educate the American Jewish community about global justice...

, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency is a government agency of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Sida is responsible for organization of the bulk of Sweden's official development assistance to developing countries....

, USAID, the Wallace Research Foundation, and the Wallace Global Fund. In August 2007, Tostan received the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...

 King Sejong Literacy Prize. In September 2007, Tostan was awarded the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize
Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize
The Conrad N. Hilton Foundation is an American non-profit charitable foundation, established in 1944 by hotel entrepreneur Conrad N. Hilton. It remained relatively small until his death on January 3, 1979 when it was named the principal beneficiary of his estate...

 for its “extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering.”.

External links

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