By Olimatou Coker
The National Coordinator of Tostan Gambia, Edrissa Keita, said ChildFund’s interventions have significantly boosted the implementation of Tostan’s programs last year.
Mr Keita made the comments during a meeting with ChildFund officials who were on a five-day countrywide tour to gauge the impact of their interventions.
The registered NGO with a focus on areas such as community-led non-formal education and community development projects headquartered in Senegal, Tostan’s operations in The Gambia began in 2007 when it, in conjunction with Unicef, rolled out its programs to over 150 communities in the URR.
Since then, the NGO has cemented itself as one of the leading community-focused NGOs. Last year, ChildFund and UNFPA provided them with funding to intensify their fight against FGM/C and other harmful practices perpetrated against women and girls.
Keita said Tostan has two funding streams from ChildFund which include seed funds envisaged to support organisations to conduct media and social media mobilisation and engagement and sharing information to empower communities around the health complications or impacts of gender-based violence.
He said Tostan conducted several engagements with communities, chiefs, alkalos, religious leaders, and traditional leaders in the Upper River Region and Central River Region.
“More than 500 people were engaged at different decentralised levels to make sure that everyone is on board.”
He said all these engagements were successfully done. “We also conducted a series of radio programs, through the project. About 48 radio programs were held in GRTs and Bansang community radio,” he added.
He explained that as part of the project they also held a 3-day training seminar with 40 religious leaders.
