Molly Melching

rdf:langString Molly Melching

rdf:langString Molly Melching is the founder and Creative Director of the Tostan Community Empowerment Program (CEP). Tostan (meaning "breakthrough" in the Wolof language) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) headquartered in Dakar, Senegal whose mission is to empower African communities to bring about sustainable development and positive social transformation based on respect for human rights. Her website, Tostan.org, states "Tostan implements a holistic, three-year empowering education program in African national languages that has engaged over 3,500 rural communities in eight African countries on themes of democracy, human rights, health, literacy, and project management skills". These themes include the abandonment of female genital cutting, the abolishment of child/forced marriage, and female empowerment in leadership positions such as leadership positions in countries across West and East Africa. Melching's expertise is in developing educational materials for use at the community level in Africa, and she helped create the Tostan Model- the informal three-year education program that remains inclusive and promotes awareness of environmental sustainability. Melching's work along with that of Senegalese communities has also contributed to several innovative community development and communication techniques including the model of organized diffusion of information and the use of the public declaration for the abandonment of FGC and child/forced marriage.