Story by Sydney Skov, Tostan Volunteer in Dakar, Senegal
Tostan’s Binta Diao is an inspiring leader, a sensational speaker, and a dedicated development worker, devoting each day to empowering others. She also drives a pretty serious motorcycle.
I recently returned from an incredible tour of Senegal, one that took the Volunteer Coordinator, her assistant, and myself to each regional Tostan office. We met with regional staff in six different areas and were given a special look into the community-led events that are driving sustainable development in Tostan villages across the country. An effective awareness raising initiative led by Tostan supervisors in each region is a kind of communication tool that I, occupying myself with online media, have never used: radio. Aimed at informing populations about important health, hygiene, and human rights issues, Tostan radio broadcasts are delivered in local languages during evening hours when entire families are home to tune in.
During our stay in the town of Kolda in the south of Senegal, I was lucky enough to meet an incredible woman by the name of Binta Diao, a Tostan supervisor in the Kolda region and an experienced radio announcer who has been leading awareness-raising campaigns via her thrice-weekly local radio show for eight years. Her dedication to community empowerment is clear: Binta rides her motorbike 80 kilometers from the Gambian border to conduct her broadcasts. Before becoming an announcer and a supervisor, responsible for overseeing Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program (CEP) in nine villages, she worked as a facilitator for seven years, teaching rural villagers about human rights, democracy, and literacy, among other subjects. She was also a participant in the CEP herself when the program was implemented in her native village in the late 1980’s.
Photos by Sydney Skov. Top: Bina Diao speaks about malaria. Below: Binta Diao and colleague Djabé Bathily in the studio in Kolda.
