Maximizing Impact: Community-led Outreach

Tostan believes that, to be most effective, education must engage entire communities. In order to accomplish this, the Tostan Community Empowerment Program (CEP) utilizes the power of social networks. Tostan has incorporated into its program highly successful strategies that facilitate the sharing of knowledge and skills learned in its program. These methods accomplish several goals: they create and strengthen constructive ties to other villages; they help to spread new ideas and practices rapidly; and they reduce redundancy in efforts to change conditions that exist throughout neighborhoods, regions, or countries. Tostan utilizes a process called organized diffusion, through which Tostan is able to help to spread information through social networks. This process heightens the impact of our programs, spreading new ideas organically from person to person and community to community. Tostan estimates that our strategies for organized diffusion allow our work to impact roughly 10 individuals for every one direct participant in our program.

The practices below are all components of Tostan’s organized diffusion approach and thus are central to Tostan’s mission of maximizing its impact by reaching as many individuals and groups as possible.

Adopt-a-Friend: Each participant in a Tostan class "adopts" a friend, neighbor, or family member with whom he or she shares new knowledge. Frequently, participants adopt more than one learning partner. This practice ensures that the concepts discussed within the CEP are spread throughout the community.

Awareness-Raising Events: Tostan classes organize awareness-raising activities to inform the entire community about the themes, such as child welfare and respect for human rights, studied during Tostan classes. For example, Tostan class members have commonly put on plays about how to improve health practices in their village. The Community Management Committees and participants also organize trips to neighboring villages to discuss new ideas and facilitate community events around such topics., which are widely covered by local and national media.

Inter-village Meetings: Inter-village meetings bring together representatives from many communities in areas where Tostan is working. These meetings provide an opportunity for community members to share experiences and discuss potential solutions to common problems. Tostan helps communities to plan informational exchanges among participants from neighboring villages, regions, and even countries. Linking villages has become a central strategy, as it facilitates the sharing of new information and practices through pre-existing networks of communication and exchange. These meetings engage as wide a network of communities as possible and are often held at an inter-zonal, inter-regional and even international level.

Radio Programs: Tostan radio programs provide another means for reaching broad, regional audiences with educational information. These broadcasts bring concepts of human rights, health and hygiene, and community empowerment to the airwaves in Senegal and Mali. Broadcast in national languages, the programs include discussions on topics such as human rights, health, and democracy, which generate further discussion and support local social-mobilization initiatives across the country.

Public Declarations: Tostan has learned from its participants that it is very difficult for one individual, one family, or one village to change a social norm alone, because they are part of a larger social network that must decide together. When villages decide to abandon harmful practices, such as female genital cutting (FGC) and child/forced marriage, they have organized, with Tostan's help, collective public declarations of their abandonment. At these declarations, members of intermarrying communities collectively change existing social norms or create new ones that protect human rights and better fit their goals and values. The communities celebrate their positive traditions as they abandon harmful ones. By reaching out to entire social networks through awareness-raising activities and helping to coordinate public declarations, Tostan ensures that the decision to abandon harmful practices becomes a sustainable, lasting change. Media coverage of the public declarations has been extensive on local, national, and international levels.