Experience from a community-based education program in Burkina Faso: The Tostan program

This study describes a project that tested the feasibility and effectiveness of replicating the village empowerment program (VEP) developed by the Senegalese NGO TOSTAN in Burkina Faso. Although one of the ultimate goals of this model is the eradication of female genital cutting (FGC) Tostan has found that an effective means to achieve this is by empowering community members to understand and act on their situation through a broad-based functional educational program. TOSTAN’s educational model includes four modules on human rights problem solving environmental hygiene and women’s health. TOSTAN’s hypothesis is that communication of technical information discussion of human rights issues and development of strategies for social transformation improve the confidence and self-determination of women through participatory educational methods. Mwangaza Action a Burkinabe NGO affiliated with the Co-operative League of the United Stated of America (CLUSA) adapted and implemented the VEP model in Bazega/Zoundwego province. Although originally developed for empowering women the program implemented in Burkina Faso also involved men because of their key role in such decisions. Frontiers in Reproductive Health with funding from USAID and the GTZ Supra Regional Project Against FGC supported the adaptation implementation and evaluation of the VEP model in 23 villages in the province of Bazega/Zoundweogo. (excerpt)