However Long The Night

I just finished reading a marvelous non-fiction book, beautifully written by Aimee Molloy.  However Long the Night is the story of Molly Melching and the extraordinary work she and her non-profit educational outreach organization, Tostan, have been doing, mostly in Senegal in West Africa.

Molly Melching in Senegal

Tostan is a word in Wolof, the most widely spoken of several languages particular to Senegal. It means 'breakthrough'.  That is exactly what Molly Melching and Tostan have facilitated in villages throughout Senegal, and in several other African nations. Tostan's work centers on using education and awareness of human rights as a platform for empowering the people to make thoughtful and informed decisions that might improve their lives.  Tostan's outreach is community based and most often begins with the women. Traditionally in virtually all African cultures, women have a subservient role to men.  They are often treated as chattel, sold into marriage at a young age, considered unworthy of education, good mostly for birthing and raising children.   One very unsettling aspect of life for females throughout Africa is something called, 'the tradition'. It involves the ceremonial cutting of a girl's genitals,  specifically the clitoris and the labia around the vagina opening, at a very young age.  For perhaps a thousand years - no one know exactly how long -  this practice, called female genital cutting, or FGC, has been a rite of passage for a girl,  thought to be crucial to a girl child's worthiness for marriage and motherhood.  Those who endure FGC are subjected to extraordinary suffering. Beyond the terrible pain that comes with having these most sensitive tissues mutilated, almost always without anesthetic, FGC is often done with an unsterile blade that has been used for the same purpose multiple times.  The health effects of FGC, including severe hemorrhaging and infection, are often permanently debilitating, even deadly. 

World Health Organization studies indicate that 140 million women around the world have been subjected to FGC,  101 million of those in Africa. 

Aimee Molly's book,  However Long the Night is a powerful narrative of a young woman, a Caucasian American, who arrived in West Africa in 1974, pursuing a master's degree in French language, hoping for a future as a linguist/translator. Almost forty years later,  Molly Melching has created of one of the most effective educational outreach non-profits operating on the African continent. 

As of April, 2013,  in Senegal, 5,423 communities have abandoned the practice of female genital cutting.  Much of the credit for this goes to Tostan.

 

 

 

 

Tostan employs a patient, culturally respectful style in its community based education, conducted by Senegalese facilitators, in the local language. Reading, writing, basic math, farming technique, water management,  hygiene, and personal health are at the core of the Tostan learning. Perhaps the most important lesson imparted to the women who participate is the knowledge that they, as human beings and citizens, have certain 'inalienable rights'.  When they learn this, illiterate women from the smallest backwater villages begin to rethink their lives.  This process has led to the renunciation of FGC in thousands of communities in Senegal,  the widespread repudiation of early childhood marriage, and a new acceptance of women in community leadership roles.

I love However Long the Night.  My admiration for Molly Melching and her team is boundless.   How can one not be inspired by a person, whose tireless commitment and perseverance has transformed an entire nation in dramatic fashion in one generation? 

I'll save the rest of what I have to say on this subject for the next blog entry,  which will tell my own personal revelation on this subject and how my recent connection with Tostan, and one of its leaders, Gannon Gillespie, has been a great benefit to my own writing.

Here is a link to the Tostan website    www.tostan.org