Here on the women's match day, I want to talk a little about why I am very passionate about Tostan, where I sit on the board. Because it is also about women.
Across West Africa, thousands of remote village communities struggle with complex challenges. Among other things , poverty, great inequality between the sexes, devastating climate change (they can no longer provide water for either people or animals) and deeply rooted harmful traditional practices such as child marriage and female circumcision .
Tostan's mission is to achieve dignity for all. We work in five West African countries and collaborate with organizations across Africa and beyond the continent to promote a movement for community well-being and individual dignity.
Tostan's development program has delivered major and measurable results across a wide range of areas.
Among other things, we have:
- taught more than 5 million people about human rights and democracy
- influenced that over 30,000 women have been elected as leaders of their local communities
- affected that over 9,000 village communities have declared their cessation of circumcision of girls and women
- affected that over 9,000 village communities have declared their end to child brides
In addition to the effect of Tostan's education program, it is important to say that 76% of all donated funds go directly and uncut to the villages that participate in the development programs. The rest goes to fundraising (getting money) and to documenting the effect of what we do.
Thanks for reading along here on Women's Match Day.
With love, Birgitte
