I was delighted when I heard that Ndeye Fatou had been able to arrange our meeting with Tostan. I had first heard of them when Joanne gave me a CD of an interview from NPR with its director Molly Melching shortly after our first trip. Then in November prior to this trip there was an article in the Parade section of the Chicago Tribune. Tostan has singlehandedly been able to reduce the incidence of female circumcision in Senegal by 70-80% in the past 10 years, simply by setting up informal groups of women in villages to discuss health needs and letting them take action. The women saw female circumcision as a human rights issue, as women were unable to “buck” the system (choose not to be “cut”) without essentially being shunned by the community. By educating not only their own community, but all the communities around them, to the hazards of this procedure and the fact that it was not required by Islamic law, the women were able to induce villages to sign letters of agreement that FGC (female genital cutting or circumcision) would not be allowed in their community. I was enchanted with the idea of this as a Human Rights issue—How absolutely correct! I immediately resolved that I wanted to meet these people when we were in Senegal.

Well, e-mails went unanswered and Karen tried phone calls too, for two years and connections were made but broken and timing didn’t work, etc. We didn’t know until about 36 hours in advance that we would be able to meet with them—through connections Ndeye Fatou had with them through her prison work. Tostan does prison work in Thies similar to what Ndeye Fatou does in Rufisque and Camp Penal.
Their office in Dakar is only a half mile or so from Karen’s home, on a quiet residential street. We were greeted by Molly herself—I was thrilled! I explained to her quickly what we did and what I was interested in—a working connection and education in their methods for our Wellness team. She welcomed all of us and led us to a large meeting room—which we filled with her staff, our nine of Team Trinity, plus Karen Ujereh, Ndeye Fatou, Dr Bashir and Nicole and Valerie from the Wellness Team. After introductions were made, she described the entire process of how Tostan was started , then invited in her assistant Malick who described their current work with the talibe, the boys who beg in the streets. Talibe means student and at one time boys were sent to marabouts to be students of Islam. Now however, families send their half-grown boys when they can no longer feed them and the marabouts make them beg for food and money or goods. If they don’t bring in a certain amount every day they are punished—and the Senegalese are told by the marabouts that bad things will happen to them if they don’t give alms to the talibe. Malick told us he was told by a marabout to give 17 yards of fabric to a talibe or he would lose his job, and even though his job is to stop the exploitation of the talibe he felt uncomfortable. Tostan works with neighborhood families to feed and clean up the talibe (they aren’t even given shelter by the marabouts)—give them a bath and clean their clothes once a week.

We then discussed what the Wellness Team and Tostan could do together—there was a lot of excitement among the participants as to the possibilities.

I felt so gratified as we left—it was definitely worth all the work to arrange the meeting. How glad I was that I had persisted!

-- Carol