HISTORY

 

The origins of Tostan date back to 1974, when an American student named Molly Melching came to Senegal as an exchange student from the University of Illinois. After completing her studies, Molly stayed to work as a Peace Corps volunteer in Dakar, creating the first radio program for children in national languages. Her work soon took her to rural villages, where she found that many development efforts were not addressing the true needs and realities of the communities.

 

Relying heavily on community feedback, Molly and a team of Senegalese cultural specialists began to methodically develop a new type of development program, one that respectfully engaged communities in the process by working in their own language and using traditional methods of learning. Their efforts grew throughout the 1980s, leading Molly to found an organization in 1991. Based on a suggestion from friend and renowned African scholar Cheikh Anta Diop, Molly named the organization Tostan—a word that means "breakthrough" (as in the hatching of an egg) in the Wolof language. The word also implies spreading and sharing, the fundamental goal of the Tostan program.

 

Over the past 15 years, Tostan—now operating in six countries and 17 languages—has developed Molly's original concepts into a leading model for community development.

 

Molly Melching never left Senegal and continues to work with the hundreds of talented employees and volunteers that have joined Tostan along the way, spreading Tostan's program, as well as a vision of human dignity for all, to new communities and countries.