Molly Melching is the founder and executive director of Tostan (meaning "breakthrough" in the Wolof language), a NGO whose mission it is to empower African communities for sustainable development and social transformation in the respect of human rights.
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Molly Melching is the founder and executive director of Tostan (meaning "breakthrough" in the Wolof language), a NGO whose mission it is to empower African communities for sustainable development and social transformation in the respect of human rights. Tostan and Melching have gained international notoriety thanks to the work of Tostan's partner communities to abandon female genital cutting and child/forced marriage in Senegal, Guinea and Burkina Faso after having participated in the three-year, non-formal, human rights-based Tostan Community Empowerment Program.
Molly's early experiences as an exchange student and Peace Corps Volunteer in Senegal in the 1970s enforced her beliefs that many development efforts were not addressing the true needs and realities of African communities. Molly and a team of Senegalese cultural specialists began to develop a new type of education-for-development program that engaged communities by working in their own language and using traditional methods for learning. Their efforts grew throughout the 1980s, leading Molly to found Tostan in 1991. Tostan and the Tostan Community Empowerment Program, now operating in seven African countries and 17 national languages, is an internationally recognized model for community-led development and communication strategies. Molly and Tostan received the Anna Lindh Human Rights Award (Sweden) in 2005, the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize and a UNESCO Literacy Prize in 2007.
Molly and Senegalese women were voted the 2007 OneWorld Person of the Year.
*Information from http://www.globalhealth.org/conference/view_top.php3?id=845