As part of the implementation of the project “When she leads everyone succeeds” (in partnership with Global Affairs Canada), a major mission has been planned for the period of April 14 to May 10, 2021 in the regions of Tambacounda and Kédougou.
The objectives of this mission were to:
1. Meet with the administrative authorities of the regions of Tambacounda and Kédougou
2. Train 4 local authorities – Bala, Oubadji, Ethielo and Dar Salam on the first part of the Strengthening Democracy and Civic Engagement module.
As the training workshops continued, testimonies were collected in parallel from councilors and administrative authorities. This allowed us not only to understand their way of working, but also to get an idea of how local governments function, the level of municipal councillors in relation to decentralization, the relationship between municipal councillors and administrative authorities, their roles and responsibilities, their knowledge of human rights, etc. Here is a particular testimony, that of Germaine Boubane, Municipal Councillor in Oubadji and Tostan Facilitator:
“
First of all, I would like to express my total satisfaction with this seminar, which is very important for me. I must admit that I am in my seventh year as a Municipal Councilor but I have never been trained on decentralization.
I never knew that a budget could be participatory and now, with this training, I understood the process to elaborate a participatory budget sensitive to children and women, and the necessity to invite these children and women to listen to them and take into account their concerns.
With this training also, we understood the importance for our local government to become a child-friendly local government because according to the information received, there are many advantages; that is why even after this five-day training, our local government has committed itself to become a child-friendly local government. From now on, we will always involve the children in everything we do because they have their say too.
With this training, we will completely change the face of our community by doing sensitization or social mobilization activities to share all that we have learned here during these five days.
I will even say now that we have nothing to envy our counterparts in Dakar because we are now at the same level of information I hope.