The Empowered Communities Network (ECN)

Throughout the course of Tostan’s 30-month Community Empowerment Program (CEP), Community Management Committees (CMCs) develop the management skills necessary to undertake and implement diverse development projects.  These CMCs have enormous potential to lead community empowerment efforts and to help macro-level development projects gain the necessary grassroots perspective from the very communities those projects aim to help.  In order to leverage this potential, Tostan created the Empowered Communities Network (ECN) in 2006 to support the more than 1,500 CMCs that have been trained through Tostan’s CEP.  The goal of the ECN is to help the participating CMCs to initiate and lead their own grassroots development processes by facilitating partnerships with other local and international organizations

 

Tostan’s successes to date stem from the organization’s belief that development is a collaborative process. The CMCs themselves embody Tostan's vision for sustainable development: democratic, community-based organizations that consult and coordinate with partner organizations in order to meet the needs of the community and improve the well-being of all community members.

 

With the necessary development tools and leadership skills in hand, CMCs can develop and implement specific action plans through subcommittees focused on topics of importance to the community: from environmental issues, to community health topics, from education and social mobilization, to income generating activities and child protection. Over time, many CMCs register as official community based organizations in their respective countries, which reinforces community capacity while ensuring that funds, projects, and campaigns are managed in a transparent and professional manner. With Tostan’s collaborative approach as the cornerstone of the ECN, and with the CMCs as the vehicle for this collaboration, Tostan hopes to link these trained CMCs with government authorities, other development NGOs, international organizations, and other service providers in order to connect community-identified development goals with domestic and internationally funded resources.

 

Donor funds enable CMCs to be agents of their own development and undertake projects at the grass-roots level that directly improve the lives of community members. Tostan is now helping to link NGO partners, microfinance institutions, businesses and government services with ECN members that are:

  - Developing community health, education, environmental or economic projects 
  - Identifying income generating projects to implement and grow community solidarity funds

  - Seeking training in specialized domains, such as sustainable agriculture, natural resources management, etc.
Please visit the Tostan CMC projects page to learn more about these projects.

 

To learn more about how your organization can collaborate with the ECN in Senegal, Guinea, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Mali, Djibouti and Somalia, please contact info@tostan.org . To learn more about how individuals can support these dynamic community-based organizations, please visit our donation page.