Community Management Committee Encourages Income Generating Activities through Fabric Dyeing Session

Story by Angie Rowe, Tostan Volunteer in Kolda, Senegal 

Our year-end fundraising campaign concludes today. Throughout this campaign, we have been highlighting different stories from Community Management Committees (CMCs) - democratically selected groups in each community trained in project development and management. CMCs plan and carry out local initiatives and truly lead the way in community development, providing inspiration as we head into the year 2013. Support their efforts by donating today and have your gift matched by The Greenbaum Foundation! 

Sikilo, a small community in the Kolda region of Senegal, completed Tostan's Community Empowerment Program (CEP) in June of 2012. The CMC remains active, engaging in activities such as trainings on soap making and fabric dyeing, community wide clean-ups, and community fund distribution. 

CMC members in Sikilo were trained in fabric dyeing to generate income for their community

In August, the CMC organized a fabric dyeing training, which was attended by all 17 members. During the training session participants learned how to mix dye, practiced fabric dyeing techniques, and discussed effective sale strategies. The fabric subsequently produced is sold in various markets throughout Kolda, providing necessary funds to support further development activities led by the CMC. 

Community Management Committees Encourage Education for All Community Members in Guinea

Story and photos by Julie Dubois, Assistant to the National Coordinator, Tostan Guinea

Our year-end fundraising campaign is going strong! This year, The Greenbaum Foundation will match every gift received, which means your impact will be instantly DOUBLED! 

As a part of our campaign, we will spotlight different stories from Community Management Committees (CMCs) - democratically selected groups in each community trained in project development and management. CMCs plan and carry out local initiatives, laying the foundation for community-led change and ensuring the sustainability of the Tostan program. Contribute to sustainable development by donating today!

“With solidarity, all is possible,” explains the CMC Coordinator Lansanna Souhmah in Brika, a village in lower Guinea.  Brika began the Community Empowerment Program in 2004, one of the first villages to participate in Tostan’s program in Guinea.  Joined by neighboring villages, Brika participated in the first public declaration for the abandonment of female genital cutting (FGC) and child/forced marriage in Guinea on June 9, 2008. Since that day the Community Management Committee (CMC) has continued to champion human rights in Brika as well as mobilize support in other communities for social change.

Members of the CMC and their children in Brika, Guinea

Education has completely transformed the residents of Brika.  Like many early Tostan partner communities, Brika participants did not benefit from the literacy and project management modules that were later incorporated as core elements of Tostan’s CEP.  Despite this, the CMC took the lead in establishing a learning center where, three times a week for the past several years, women and men have learned how to read and write in their national language.

Before the community of Brika began the CEP, community members did not send their children to school.  Education was not a priority, especially because the nearest school was located too far away.  Although Brika is about a mile from the school in Tougnifily, children had to take a detour of nearly eight miles to cross the river that intersects the two communities. The CMC raised awareness about the importance of education for each and every child, and the community became determined to build a bridge so that the children could easily travel to and from school. Now, every child in Brika receives formal education.  The CMC is even mobilizing once again to raise funds to reinforce the bridge, ensuring community access for years to come.

If you come across Brika children running across the bridge and ask them to tell you about their favorite subjects, you will hear girls’ answers filled with hope and ambition.  They dream of becoming ambassadors, social workers, and even journalists.  All of them recognize that their dreams would not be possible without education.  And the adults in the community agree that by abandoning child/forced marriage, girls will stay in school and have brighter futures.

For many children from Brika, they will be the first in their families to complete formal education.  For two junior high students, Mohammed Ali Camara and Abdoulaye Barry, schooling has opened the path for more opportunities.  They, along with many others, have a strong will to attend school and relish in the fact that they will decide their own futures.

Mohammed Ali Camara and Abdoulaye Barry will be the first
in their families to complete formal education

  
In countries where Tostan works, there are thousands of communities like Brika that have improved the lives of women, men, and children through their participation in Tostan’s proven model of nonformal education.  The CEP reinforces human rights, while CMCs take the lead on development projects that promote the well-being of every woman, man, and child in the community.  

A Community Management Committee Harnesses Solar Energy in Rural Guinea-Bissau

Story by Matt Boslego, Internal Communications Assistant, Tostan International 

Our year-end fundraising campaign is going strong! As a part of our campaign, we are highlighting different stories from Community Management Committees (CMCs) - democratically selected groups in each community trained in project development and management. CMCs plan and carry out local initiatives and truly lead the way in community development, providing inspiration as we head into the year 2013. Support their efforts by donating today or share this campaign with your friends and families.

 

Fatima Seidi and Awa Mané are trained in solar power maintenance

The village of Mambonco in rural Guinea-Bissau’s cashew-growing heartland is proud to have a primary school within its limits, offering public education to several hundred children from the surrounding area. As is the case in most of the country, children’s study time is drastically limited by the hours of daylight. Guinea-Bissau’s electricity infrastructure, though improving, rarely reaches rural populations.

The Community Management Committee (CMC) of Mambonco, in partnership with India’s Barefoot College, has been able to implement a solution: affordable solar power. Two CMC members, Fatima Seidi and Awa Mané, were trained on solar panel maintenance and installation in India. Today, they work with the village CMC to ensure that the panels stay in good condition and reach as many residents as possible. 

Residents pay the CMC a small monthly fee to rent a panel. The proceeds are kept in a fund which is used to support the solar engineer’s full-time work and to pay for replacement equipment. The additional revenue goes into the CMC’s community support fund, financing community development projects such as planting a community cashew orchard and lending money to small-business ventures in the village. 

Community Management Committees Ensure Sustainability: Village Cleanup in Mauritania

Story by Matt Boslego, Internal Communications Assistant, Tostan International 

Our year-end fundraising campaign has begun, and this year, the Greenbaum Foundation will match every gift received, which means your impact will be instantly DOUBLED! As a part of our campaign, we will spotlight different stories from Community Management Committees (CMCs) - democratically selected groups in each community trained in project development and management. CMCs plan and carry out local initiatives, laying the foundation for community-led change and ensuring the sustainability of the Tostan program. Contribute to sustainable development by donating today!

Created in 2011, the dynamic Community Management Committee (CMC) of Boghe Escal in Mauritania made extraordinary advancements during the past year thanks to participation in the Community Empowerment Program (CEP).  The CMC, which includes 17 democratically elected members (nine women, eight men), spread information through organized diffusion to almost every area of the community.  The CMC is responsible for everything from monitoring the vaccinations of children to promoting village cleanliness through education.
 
The CMC of Boghe Escal educates thousands of people through awareness-raising activities, which focus on topics including human rights, the harmful consequences of FGC and child/forced marriage, promotion of girls’ education, and the importance of birth registration.  These activities often use theater as a way to reinforce specific themes that participants study during the CEP—for instance how FGC can affect the health of girls and women and how to effectively and peacefully resolve disputes.
 
In addition to education, the CMC recently collaborated with the city to effectively remove trash from the village, creating a clean and safe environment for all the families. This is just one among many projects carried out by the CMC to develop their community.

A donation to Tostan today will give us the capacity to implement the CEP in 1,000 more communities by 2013—this means the creation of more CMCs that actively promote and implement development activities at the grassroots level.  Donate today!

Community Management Committees Ensure Improved Access to Healthcare in Rural Guinea

Story and photographs by Julie Dubois, Assistant to the National Coordinator at Tostan Guinea

Our year-end fundraising campaign has begun, and this year, the Greenbaum Foundation will match every gift received, which means your impact will be instantly DOUBLED! As a part of our campaign, we will spotlight different stories from Community Management Committees (CMCs) - democratically selected groups in each community trained in project development and management. CMCs plan and carry out local initiatives, laying the foundation for community-led change and ensuring the sustainability of the Tostan program. Contribute to sustainable development by donating today!

The renovated health center of Koba M'bendia.

Koba M’bendia is a community near Basse, Guinea that began Tostan’s holistic Community Empowerment Program (CEP) in 2005. As an essential part of the three-year program covering human rights, hygiene and health, problem solving, and project management, communities form Community Management Committees (CMCs). CMCs are 17-member leadership bodies designed to organize and carry out awareness-raising events and lead community development projects.

In the community of Koba M’bendia, the CMC succeeded in improving the health of their community by renovating and raising awareness about the local health center. Before the CEP, community members did not frequent the clinic. The health center was seen as the “property of the doctor” and community members considered the nurse a stranger. As soon as someone became sick, they preferred to be treated by the local healer with traditional or folk medicine.

After learning about health and hygiene in the CEP, such as germ transmission and common diseases, participants gained a better understanding of the importance of visiting a trained medical practitioner. Realizing that the clinic was in need of a renovation, CMC members began going door to door in Koba M’bendia and the neighboring village to raise awareness about the center. Thanks to their encouragement and insistence as well as the financial support of the World Bank, the center was renovated in 2008. Residents of Koba M’bendia financed 10 percent of the renovation and finished the project, painting and decorating the clinic. 

CMC members with their children.

The CMC is now part of the Health Center Management Committee, which is in charge of awareness-raising activities. Women now give birth at the health center, children receive regular vaccinations, and community members consult the nurse for health concerns. Already, there is a visible decline in both minor and fatal illnesses because of the community’s increased awareness and access to the renovated health center.

The success of the health center of Koba M’bendia has drawn patients from nine neighboring villages, showing both its success but also a greater need for more health posts in rural Guinea.  Unfortunately, the clinic cannot support everyone at its current capacity, but the CMC of Koba M’bendia uses social mobilization activities, such as inter-village meetings, to encourage other communities to invest in the creation of their own health centers.

Community Management Committees (CMCs) Ensure Sustainability: Nutrition in The Gambia

Story and photograph by Elizabeth Loveday, Regional Projects Assistant at Tostan The Gambia 

Our year-end fundraising campaign has begun, and this year, the Greenbaum Foundation will match every gift received, which means your impact will be instantly DOUBLED! As a part of our campaign, we will spotlight different stories from Community Management Committees (CMCs) - democratically selected groups in each community trained in project development and management. CMCs plan and carry out local initiatives, laying the foundation for community-led change and ensuring the sustainability of the Tostan program.  Contribute to sustainable development by donating today!

The Community Management Committee (CMC) of Kolibantang has taken a lead in ensuring the health and well-being of their youngest community members. On October 25, the CMC led a Nutrition Day to provide practical advice to children and their parents on healthy eating. 

The morning was spent preparing nutritious meals made with local produce such as beans, dried fish, vegetables, and mangoes from the 84 trees planted by the CMC. Sixty-five children from Kolibantang and the neighboring community of Yero Bawol were served a delicious meal, and it is sure to be a lesson that neither the parents nor the kids will forget. 

With over 8,000 Gambian Dalasi (approximately $264) in their community fund, raised through monthly contributions and fundraising activities, the CMC of Kolibantang can continue leading community initiatives, similar to Nutrition Day, spreading community awareness on issues of child health and nutrition.