Community-led Outreach

 

Tostan has built into its program highly successful strategies that foster the sharing of knowledge and skills learned in its educational program. These methods accomplish several goals: they reduce villagers' isolation through creating 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 local neighborhoods, regions, or countries.

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.

Awareness-Raising Events: Tostan classes organize awareness-raising activities to inform the entire community about the themes 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.  

Intervillage Meetings: Intervillage meetings bring together representatives from many communities in zones where Tostan is working. These meetings provide an opportunity for everyone to share experiences and discuss potential solutions to common problems. Tostan helps participants plan exchanges between participants from neighboring villages, regions, and even countries. Linking villages has become an intentional strategy because it fosters the sharing of new information and practices among an already existing social network of communities.

Radio Programs: Tostan radio programs provide another means for reaching out to others with educational information. These broadcasts bring education to the airways once a week in seven out of eleven regions in Senegal. 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.

Marches: Tostan has also helped villagers organize marches to bring public attention to issues, such as child welfare, respect of human rights and environmental issues. These events are widely covered by local and national media.

Public Declarations: When villages have decided to abandon the harmful traditional practices of female genital cutting and child marriage, they have organized, with Tostan's help, collective public declarations. At these declarations, members of intramarrying communities agree to change the social norm that required them to practice FGC. They celebrate their positive traditions as they abandon harmful ones. Tostan has learned from its participants that it is very difficult for one individual, one family or one village to abandon alone because they are part of a larger social network that must decide together. Media coverage of the public declarations has been extensive on local, national, and international levels.