Building financial independence in rural Senegal

Give women in Senegal a chance to put their skills to use and provide an income for themselves their families and communities.

Why we care: Women in rural Senegal are learning the skills to remove them from poverty and move towards financial independence; they now need the opportunity.

How we're solving this: $25, $40, or $50 grants will provide women with capital to start their own businesses.

Tostan will provide small grants to 12 communities, each of whom will use collective discussions about future community goals to determine how they will be used. Each community has participated in Tostan’s Community Empowerment Program (CEP) and has a Community Management Committee (CMC) that consists of 17 democratically selected women and men to manage and lead community development initiatives.

The committees administer small loans of $25, $40, or $50 to women for a variety of income-generating projects, including fabric dyeing, soap making and vegetable canning. Collective funds are also used for larger community projects such as creating a community garden, building a health center or purchasing an ambulance.

The 12 communities have already been trained on democracy, human rights, problem solving, health and hygiene, literacy, math and project management through Tostan’s three-year program. The funds distributed by Tostan through community grants provide a way of transforming that knowledge and training into real and tangible income-generating and community development initiatives.