Skoll Foundation

Molly Melching and Tostan were recently part of  the New York Times’ Fixes column. An excerpt:

“When it comes to changing human behavior, Melching said that the force of law or even the threat of spirits still pales in comparison to the power of information.

She related how Tostan is now sharing the latest information about brain development with Senegalese parents, the kind of neuroscience that Americans and Europeans are used to hearing: the first 15 days of a baby’s life are critical for brain development, and speaking aloud to them goes a long way in language comprehension and formation later on. Melching said she and her colleagues spent hours getting new fathers, many of them respected leaders in the community, used to these practices. She laughed aloud recounting the image of these men, babies in their arms, awkwardly greeting their children: ‘Um, hello baby.’ read more

Skoll Foundation portfolio principal Kimberly Dasher Tripp shares her insights on how to scale impact in the Harvard Business Review. Here’s an excerpt:

“If you ask venture capitalists in Silicon Valley how they measure the success of business entrepreneurs, they would no doubt list off metrics having to do with fast growth: funding raised, people hired, customers acquired, revenue produced. The assumption is that company growth is good. But when it comes to social ventures, where the primary focus is impact (not profits), bigger isn’t necessarily better.

When organizations talk to my colleagues and me at the Skoll Foundation about growth in staff size, budget size, or client / beneficiary numbers, we often ask “So what?” In our view, those types of growth don’t necessarily translate to real and significant impact. Sure, size can often be correlated to maturity, but we want to know that the service, curriculum, or product the organization is offering has a significant impact on the problem it aims to solve. For us the question is not how do you grow organizations but how do you scale impact?”

Read the rest: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/01/its_not_all_about_growth_for_s.html

17 January 2013, Dakar, Senegal: Tostan, an African-based NGO, has launched a new project to enable communities in West Africa to share their own vision of development, social change and peace-building through innovative filmmaking.   

Tostan was awarded a $20,000 grant by Stories of Change, a project of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund (DFP), supported by the Skoll Foundation for this project.

Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, which is funding Tostan’s Peace and Security Project, is also supporting the training program for Tostan staff and local filmmakers.

read more

In the last month, lots has happened in the world of female genital cutting, or FGC. A United Nations Committee has called for a ban on it.

144 communities in Guinea-Bissau publicly declared their abandonment of it. And we announced Molly Melching’s upcoming book, However Long the Night, which goes on sale in April 2013. In her Financial Times magazine piece, Sally Osberg talked about Melching’s work.

We wanted to share some of the most recent stories and photos from Tostan, on their coverage of the Guinea-Bissau declarations. An excerpt:  read more

“Social entrepreneurs see possibility where others see problems. They are unapologetically ambitious, setting their sights not just on incremental improvements but on systems-level transformation. And to achieve their audacious ends, social entrepreneurs enroll those most vested in that transformation — people oppressed, marginalised, or constrained by an existing reality.”

Those are Skoll Foundation CEO Sally Osberg’s words in This is Africa, a new publication from the Financial Times that “seeks to examine African business and politics in a global context and to make sense of the relationships that Africa is building with the rest of the world.” read more

Tostan has big news to share: 144 communities in Guinea-Bissau will publicly declare their promotion of human rights, including abandoning female genital cutting and child marriage, and embracing all human rights and responsibilities.

The first declaration of 75 communities in the Cambajú, Bafata Region was yesterday. Here’s more from the Tostan blog:

“The curriculum of Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program (CEP) begins with interactive sessions on democracy, human rights, and problem solving. These themes are the basis of the programand relate to later sessions on hygiene, health, literacy, math, and project management. By centering the program on human rights, participants are able to identify rights-affirming practices they wish to reinforce in their communities and harmful practices they wish to abandon. read more

First book in partnership, about the life and work of Molly Melching
and TOSTAN, to be published in April 2013

October 19, 2012; San Francisco, CA—HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announces a partnership with the Skoll Foundation to publish co-branded narrative nonfiction books by Skoll Foundation Social Entrepreneurs—91 entrepreneurs in 74 organizations globally, that have proven they can change the world.  HarperOne has been a leading publisher of books about personal and social change for 35 years, including more than 75 New York Times and national bestsellers in the last six years.

The books, by Skoll entrepreneurs in collaboration with leading writers, will tell dramatic first person stories about creating large-scale impact on the world’s most daunting problems. The debut title, However Long the Night: One American Woman’s Journey to Help Millions of African Women and Girls Triumph, tells the riveting tale of Molly Melching and her organization, Tostan. read more

Today we’re sharing a blog from Skoll awardee Tostan. Written by Lilli Loveday, Projects Assistant, The Gambia:

Through our work we have learned that as communities become empowered through human rights-based education, their ability to empower girls amplifies. In celebration of the first ever International Day of the Girl—11 October 2012—we are sharing the inspiring stories of five girls as they pursue their goals and build an empowered future for themselves and their communities in our blog series, Spotlight on Girls.

Now let’s turn the spotlight on Aja Drummeh from Bajon Koto, The Gambia.

Five-year-old Aja Drammeh lives in the Bajon Koto community in the Upper River Region (URR) of The Gambia. At an inter-village meeting held in her hometown at the end of August, Aja inspired the audience as she shared her remarkable knowledge of human rights, democracy, and issues related to health and hygiene. read more

After two years of Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program (CEP), 28 Somaliland communities abandoned  female genital cutting (FGC) and child/forced marriage this weekend in a big event.

The formal declaration read: “As from today and witnessed by politicians, traditional/religious leaders, government officials and the common men, women and children, we 28 communities of Maroodi Jeex do hereby declare unanimously the abandonment of all forms of FGC. These 28 communities will join the 20 communities that abandoned FGC in Somaliland in 2009.”

Congratulations, Tostan!

Read more and see more celebratory photos: http://www.hornnewspaper.com/index.php/home/252-public-declaration-abandonment-of-all-forms-of-fgc

Congratulations to Tostan, which just won an “Award in Action” from the Cécilia Attias Foundation for Women, which brings global attention to successful development approaches that improve the well-being of African women.

Highlighted as an example of best practice within the international health field, Tostan received the Award for its work on improving health systems and maternal care at the community level.  The award was announced in Gabon at the Foundation’s Dialogue for Action Africa, an international forum dedicated to promoting well-being for all women.

Read more: http://www.tostan.org/web/module/events/pressID/241/interior.asp

“Every change agent needs an agency,” writes Fast Company, in its latest “top” list.

Congratulations to Erin Ganju of Room to Read, Ann Cotton and Molly Melching, as well as Skoll Foundation friend Pat Mitchell, who the magazine chose as part of the top 60 list of women who “tackle areas of dire need.”

See them all here: http://www.fastcompany.com/women-heroes/2012

There’s a beautiful three-page article on Tostan and Barefoot College and their partnership in the May 2012 Belgian version of Elle.

The Headline says, “Formed at Barefoot College: The Electricity Fairy.”

And the Intro says, “A Senegalese mother who has never been to school can become a leader or respected engineer and the head of solar panels of her village? Two organizations have taken up the challenge.”

Unfortunately, it’s only in their print edition, but here is a glimpse of it.